Scope and Topics

AAMAS is the leading scientific conference for research in autonomous agents and multi-agent systems. The AAMAS conference series was initiated in 2002 as the merging of three respected scientific meetings: the International Conference on Multi-Agent Systems (ICMAS), the International Workshop on Agent Theories, Architectures, and Languages (ATAL), and the International Conference on Autonomous Agents (AA). The aim of the joint conference is to provide a single, high-profile, internationally-respected archival forum for scientific research in the theory and practice of autonomous agents and multi-agent systems.

AAMAS 2020 is the 19th edition of the AAMAS conference, and the first time AAMAS will be held in New Zealand. The conference solicits papers addressing original research on autonomous agents and their interaction, including agents that interact with humans. In addition to the main track, there will be two special tracks: Blue Sky Ideas and JAAMAS. Specific details and topics of interest for these tracks appear below.

Topics of interest for the main track include (but are not limited to) the following 10 areas:

Area 1 – Coordination, Organisations, Institutions and Norms

    Architectures for social reasoning
    Coordination and control models for multi-agent systems
    Monitoring agent societies
    Normative systems
    Organisations and institutions
    Policy, regulation and legislation
    Self-organisation
    Social networks
    Socio-technical systems
    Trust and reputation
    Values in multi-agent systems, including privacy, safety, security and transparency

Area 2 – Engineering Multi-Agent Systems

    Development concerns, including deployment, scalability and complexity
    Empirical studies and industrial experience reports on engineering MAS applications
    Formal methods and declarative technologies for specification, verification and engineering of MAS
    Interoperability and integration
    Programming frameworks, languages, models and abstractions for all aspects of MAS
    Software engineering methodologies and techniques for agent-based systems
    Tools and testbeds for evaluation of MAS

Area 3 – Humans and AI / Human-Agent Interaction

    Agent-based analysis of human interactions
    Agents competing and collaborating with humans
    Agents for improving human cooperative activities
    Groups of humans and agents
    Human-robot/agent interaction
    Multimodal interaction
    Multi-user/multi-agent interaction
    Social agent architectures
    Social agent models
    Socially interactive agents

Area 4 – Innovative Applications

    Challenges in moving agent-based technology to the real world
    Deployed applications of agent-based systems
    Emerging applications of agent-based systems
    Integrated applications of agent-based and other technologies
    User studies of deployed agent-based systems

Area 5 – Knowledge Representation, Reasoning and Planning

    Agent theories and models
    Coalition formation (non-strategic)
    Communication and argumentation
    Distributed problem solving
    Logics for agent reasoning
    Ontologies for agents
    Single- and multi-agent planning and scheduling
    Reasoning about action, plans and change in multi-agent systems
    Reasoning about knowledge, beliefs, goals, norms and strategies in multi-agent systems
    Reasoning and problem solving in agent-based systems
    Teamwork, team formation, teamwork analysis
    Verification of multi-agent systems

Area 6 – Learning and Adaptation

    Adversarial machine learning
    Co-evolutionary algorithms
    Deep learning
    Evolutionary algorithms
    Learning agent-to-agent interactions (negotiation, trust, coordination)
    Learning agent capabilities (agent models, communication, observation)
    Multi-agent learning
    Reinforcement learning
    Reward structures for learning

Area 7 – Markets, Auctions, and Non-Cooperative Game Theory

    Auctions and mechanism design
    Bargaining and negotiation
    Behavioural game theory
    Game theory for practical applications
    Non-cooperative games: computation
    Non-cooperative games: theory & analysis

Area 8 – Modelling and Simulation of Societies

    Analysis of agent-based simulations
    Emergent behaviour
    Interactive simulation
    Modelling for agent-based simulation
    Simulation of complex systems
    Simulation techniques, tools and platforms
    Social simulation
    Validation of simulation systems
    Verification and validation of (simulated) agent-based systems

Area 9 – Robotics

    Explainability, trust and ethics for robots
    Failure recovery for robots
    Human-robot interaction and collaboration
    Knowledge representation and reasoning
    Long-term (or lifelong) autonomy
    Machine learning for robotics
    Mapping and localisation
    Multi-robot systems
    Networked systems and distributed robotics
    Robot control

Area 10 – Social Choice and Cooperative Game Theory

    Coalition formation (strategic)
    Cooperative games: computation
    Cooperative games: theory & analysis
    Social choice theory

Information for Authors

AAMAS 2020 encourages submission of analytical, empirical, methodological, technological, or perspective papers. Analytical and empirical papers should make clear the significance and relevance of their results to the AAMAS community. Similarly, methodological and technological papers should make clear their scientific and technical contributions, and are expected to demonstrate a thorough evaluation of their strengths and weaknesses in practice. It is strongly encouraged that papers focusing on specific agent capabilities evaluate their techniques in the context of autonomous agent architectures or multi-agent systems. A thorough evaluation, conducted from a theoretical or applied basis, is considered an essential component of any submission. Authors are also requested to pay particular attention to discussing how their work relates to the state of the art in autonomous agents and multi-agent systems research as evidenced in, for example, previous AAMAS and related conferences and journals. All submissions will be rigorously peer reviewed and evaluated on the basis of the overall quality of their technical contribution, including criteria such as originality, soundness, relevance, significance, quality of presentation, and understanding of the state of the art.

AAMAS 2020 seeks the submission of high-quality papers limited to 8 pages in length in the IFAAMAS format, with any additional pages containing only bibliographic references. Reviews will be double blind; authors must avoid including anything that can be used to identify themselves. Please note that submitting an abstract is required before submitting a full paper. However, the abstracts will not be reviewed, and full papers must be submitted for the review process to begin. All work must be original, i.e., must not have appeared in a conference proceedings, book or journal, and may not be under review for another archival conference. Papers will be accepted as either full papers (8 pages + 1 page of references) or extended abstracts (2 pages + 1 page of references).

Papers submitted to the main track must be designated by the authors into one of the above 10 areas. The chairs of this area will have responsibility for the reviewing process. In cases where the area chairs recognise that a submission better fits another area, in consultation with the program chairs, a submission may be transferred from one area to another before reviewers are assigned.

In addition to submissions in the main track, AAMAS 2020 solicits papers in two special tracks, described below. The review process for the special tracks will be similar to the main track, but with dedicated program committee members and review criteria.

Detailed submission instructions can be found on the conference website: aamas2020.conference.auckland.ac.nz

At least one of the authors of each accepted paper is required to register (by the early registration deadline), attend and present the paper at the conference. A significant number of papers will be invited to submit extended versions to the Journal of Autonomous Agents and Multi-agent Systems (JAAMAS) for fast-track review.