Dynamic Timetabling Using Reactive Constraint Agents

Kebanyakan teknik yang diimplimentasi bagi menyelesaikan masalah penjadualan tertumpu kepada proses yang statik. Walau bagaimanapun, di dalam dunia sebenar, masalah penjadualan merupakan satu masalah yang terbuka, dinamik dan sentiasa berubah–ubah mengikut kekangan dan andaian. Oleh yang demikian, objektif utama kertas ini adalah untuk mengendalikan perubahanperubahan yang berlaku setelah jadual waktu awalan terhasil. Agen Kekangan Reaktif (AKR) telah diimplimentasi lebih khusus dan berkeupayaan membaiki dan mengubahsuai jadual waktu secara bertahap dengan komunikasi dan kerjasama di antara satu sama lain bagi mengekalkan kesauran jadual waktu tersebut. Seni bina AKR ini telah dilaksana dan diuji dengan menggunakan data sebenar iaitu data dari Fakulti Sains, Universiti Ibb, Yemen. Hasil kajian menunjukkan bahawa AKR berupaya mengendalikan perubahan–perubahan dalam masa nyata dengan pembaikan yang minimum ke atas jadual waktu asal. Kata kunci: Masalah penjadualan waktu, penjadualan waktu dinamik, pengaturcaraan terhad, agen perisian, seni bina agen terbuka Most of the approaches that have been applied to solve the timetabling problems focus on the construction of the timetable as a static process. In real world, the timetabling problems are dynamic and open problems since the initial timetable is not fixed and it is required to be changed as the constraints or assumptions on which the timetable is based on, are changed or became invalid. Therefore, the main objective of this paper is to handle the changes after generating the initial timetable. The Reactive Constraint Agents (RCA) architecture is capable of repairing and modifying the timetable gradually by communicating and cooperating with each other to maintain the timetable feasibility. This architecture has been implemented and tested using real data from Faculty of Science, University of Ibb – Yemen. The results show that the RCA can cope with the changes in real–time with minimal modification to the existing timetable. Key words: Timetabling problem, dynamic timetabling, constraints programming, software agents, open agent architecture