Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
The
micro-level
is concerned with properties of a single entity. This
includes especially inner structure and behavior of an agent, but
also refers to further entities like objects which may not exhibit a
behavior on their own.
The
macro-level
defines the overall model, i. e., the common envir-
onment and the embedding of all entities currently (inter)acting
within this environment. Therefore, possible event types and con-
straints which may be present in a specific model are defined on
the macro-level.
Simulation time has to be considered on both macro- and micro-level.
Detailed explanations of all components of an agent-based model are
given in the following.
Example: Firespread
For illustration of the GRAMS reference
model, the example of a fireman fighting against fire spreading
in a landscape is chosen. Inspired from [58]and[89], the chosen
scenario also contains a firebug.
The requirement is to represent the landscape made of empty
spaces and forests with its dynamics of fire occurrence and spread-
ing. It is assumed that the firebug wanders around randomly and
ignites some forest with a given (low) probability. As long as no
fire is detected, the fireman is waiting at his current position. If a
fire occurs, he moves towards the fire. When on a burning place,
he waters the surface. The model uses an environment composed
of cells with a Moore topology (i.e., each cell has 8 neighbors).
Each cell can be either empty, with forest, watered, burning or
burned (see Figure 6.4). A cell with forest may be ignited by the
firebug; a fireman is positioned on the cells with the objective to
stop the fire(s).
