A Metric for Modelling and Measuring Complex Behavioural Systems

Abstract: This paper describes a metric for measuring the success of a complex system composed of agents performing autonomous behaviours. Because of the difficulty in evaluating such systems, this metric will help to give an initial indication as to how suitable the agents would be for solving the problem. The system is modelled as a script, or behavioural ontology, with a number of variables to represent each of the behaviour attributes. The set of equations can be used both for modeling and as part of the simulation evaluation. Behaviours can be nested, allowing for compound behaviours of arbitrary complexity to be built. There is also the capability for including rules or decision making into the script. The paper also gives some test examples to show how the metric might be used.