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Agent based modeling. Technology overview
In this chapter, we will present an overview of the technologies and techniques used
in agent based modeling. It is important to understand that there is no special or
standard language for agent based modeling. Agent based models are very diverse in
architecture, behavior types, number of agents, space, and so on. Other modeling
methods (discrete event and system dynamics) are often used inside and outside
agents. There are, however, design patterns that are common to many agent based
models, which we will consider:
Object-based architecture
Time model: asynchronous or synchronous (steps or clock ticks)
Space (continuous, discrete, geographical) and mobility
Networks and links between agents
Communication between agents, and between agents and environment
Dynamic creation and destruction of agents
Statistics collection on agent populations
Before we dive into the technical stuff, we will discuss what kind of real world objects
the agents actually represent.
Who are the agents?
Agents in an agent based model may represent very diverse things: vehicles, units of
equipment, projects, products, ideas, organizations, investments, pieces of land,
people in different roles, etc.

Agents may be
People in different roles:
consumers, citizens, employees,
patients, doctors, clients, soldiers,

Equipment, vehicles:
trucks, cars, cranes, aircrafts,
rail cars, machines,

Non-material things:
projects, products, innovations, ideas,
investments
Organizations:
companies, political parties, countries,
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Given a particular problem we are solving with the help of agent based modeling, how
do we choose who the agents are? This may not be as trivial as it seems. Consider the
following example.
Who are the agents in an American automotive market model?
You are going to model the American automotive market (for example, to forecast its
reaction to a certain move by one of the players) and you have decided to use agent
based modeling. In automotive market, people buy and sell cars. So, the first thing that
comes to mind is that agents are people because they make decisions.

Agents are people
What about cars? Cars, at first glance, are passive objects that have different
parameters and may vary in appeal to different people. But cars do have some
dynamics because with age they lose appeal and value. So, should we model cars as
agents or just leave them as plain objects, or entities, being handled by agents/people?

Agents are people and cars
What if a person shares a car with a spouse? Who makes the decision then? Should we
model collaboration between family members?
?
?
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A car shared by two family members. Collaborative decision making
The situation gets even more complicated if we consider families with children,
families with multiple cars shared by multiple people, and so on.

Multiple cars shared by multiple people
There is no universal answer to the question. Depending on the details of the problem,
different model architectures may make sense. In the Vehicle Market Model created by
Mark Paich (Decisio Consulting and Lexidyne), the agents were not individual people,
but households. Households had garage slots with cars, and cars were not agents, they
were objects with properties like year, make, and model. Decisions about selling or
buying a car were made at the household level, taking into account the number of
family members, their ages, income, and other factors.

Agents are households
?
?
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Agent based modeling and object-oriented design
Agent based simulation modeling and object-oriented software design have a lot in
common. When software engineers think about how to choose a set of classes, where
to draw the line between interface and implementation, and which set of constructors
a class should have, they are doing a type of agent based, or individual based,
modeling for the problem that the software is addressing.
We can extend this analogy to the procedural programming paradigm that historically
preceded the object-oriented paradigm. In procedural programming, the software
developer was thinking of the program as a (possibly hierarchical) sequence of steps
that should be taken to reach a goal. Similarly, in discrete event (process-centric)
modeling, the modeler represents the system as a (possibly hierarchical) sequence of
operations that are performed over entities. However, unlike procedural
programming, which was almost totally replaced by object-oriented programming,
discrete event modeling successfully coexists with agent based modeling.
Lets also discuss classes and objects. Class is, in a way, a design-time term; it is a
description. Class describes a set of similar objects, but these objects (called instances
of the class) will not be created until the program is run. Objects exist at runtime. So,
speaking rigorously, agents exist only in a running agent based model. When you are
developing the model, you only construct agent classes.
Agents (objects) of the same class have common structure and behavior, but may
differ in details, such as parameter values and state information (memory) that
includes variable values, statechart and event states, etc. For example, two agents of
the class Patient have the same set of parameters and the same behavior pattern, but
may differ in age, location, disease state, or contact lists.
Interface of the agent (object) is the set of things other agents and external parts of the
model can see and use to interact with the agent. These can be variables (in OO
terminology these would be public fields), functions (public methods), ports, or
messages. As opposed to interface, implementation of the agent (object) is a set of
things internal to the agent and hidden from the external world (variables, functions,
statecharts, events, embedded agents, etc).
Separation of interface and implementation in OO programming allows for modular
development: one can change (optimize, extend, or improve) a class by changing its
implementation and other classes will not need to know about the changes as long as
the interface stays the same. In OO programming, this separation is strongly
supported by the restrictive language constructs that prevent the programmer from
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accessing the implementation from outside the class (for example, the Java keywords
private or protected).
In agent based modeling, those formal access restrictions are often omitted for the
purpose of simplicity and more rapid development. For example, the statechart states
and transitions in AnyLogic are visible from outside the agent so that one can make
inquiries and collect statistics on the agent state by simply writing <agent name>.<state
name>. The modeler, however, should not abuse the transparency of the agent border
(which he should define himself and keep in mind) and refrain from interacting with
the agent in an illegal manner. Examples of this would be assigning a new value to
the agent variable or resetting the agent internal event from outside.
Important differences between agent based modeling and OO programming are that
agents are typically dynamic, have internal time delays, can initiate events, and can
have continuously changing variables inside, whereas objects in an OO program
typically act upon request; they do something only when their methods are called.
Agents in a running agent based model, in this sense, are more like threads or
concurrent processes in a running program. This makes the techniques applied in the
design of concurrent and parallel systems (such as message sequence diagrams
explained in the Field Service example) useful in agent based modeling.
Similar to objects, agents can be created and destroyed dynamically.
There are things that are fundamentally important in OO design, but are not widely
used in agent based modeling. These are, for example, inheritance and polymorphism.
Agent based modelers, in general, are not really keen on creating class hierarchies and
interfaces or overriding methods in Java or C++ style. Instead, they often use
conditional functions and behavior components.
Consider a population model where males and females have differences in behavior.
An OO purist would create a class hierarchy like the one shown in the Figure on the
left. Properties and behavior common for all people would be located in the base class
Person, whereas behavior specific to males and females would be placed in the two
corresponding subclasses Male and Female. A non OO-minded modeler would create
just one class Person, with the parameter Sex, and one behavior component with two
branches as shown in the same figure on the right. Both versions may make sense, but
which one is better depends on how these constructs are used throughout the model.
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OO purist and non OO-minded modeler versions of agent classes in a population model
OO modeling in AnyLogic
Any AnyLogic model, not just an agent based one, consists of classes that inherit from
ActiveObject. ActiveObject is the base class for all model components (called active
objects) defined in the AnyLogic engine.
In the simplest case, there is just one active object class Main in the model. When you
create a new model, this class is added automatically and its editor opens. Then you
can start to fill the class with process flowcharts, stocks, flows, statecharts, events, and
graphics.
Person
Education
Birth date
Male
Male
lifephase
Female
Female
lifephase
Base class
Subclasses
Agent
Coordinates
Connections

AnyLogic engine classes
Classes in the user model
Subclass of
Person
Education Birth date
Sex
Male
lifephases
Female
lifephases
Lifephase
Sex == MALE Sex == FEMALE
Subclass of
ActiveObject
The base class for all model
components
A subclass of ActiveObject
that extends it with
networking, moblity,
message passing and other
useful functionality
OO purist version
Non OO-minded modeler version
Subclass of
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In a hierarchical model there is more than one class, and when the model runs objects
of different classes are embedded one into another. When we say an active object is
embedded into another active object (called container object), it means:
The embedded object does not exist without the container; it is created when
the container is created, and deleted when the container is deleted.
If the embedded object is replicated, i.e., has multiple instances, the container
object controls dynamic creation and deletion of the instances.
The animation of the embedded object becomes a part of the animation of the
container object (embedded animation).
From a Java viewpoint, the embedded object is a member, or field, of the
container object and exists in its namespace at the same level as variables,
parameters, statecharts, etc.
Any agent based model is hierarchical and has at least two classes: the top-level class
(like Main) that contains the agents, and the agent class (like Person). Agents typically
exist as a replicated object (a collection of multiple objects of the same type)
embedded into Main, see the Figure. User agent classes do not inherit directly from the
ActiveObject class; they are subclasses of the class Agent, which extends ActiveObject
with features specific for agent based modeling.

UML diagram of a typical agent based model
In AnyLogic you do not need to write code to create subclasses and embed objects into
one another; it is done by using drag and drop and wizards. The simplest way of
setting up the architecture of an agent based model is to use the Agent population
wizard.
Main
Agent
AnyLogic engine classes
Classes in the user model
Subclass of
Person
Subclass of
ActiveObject
people[]
Contains
multiple
instances of
Subclass of
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To create a population of agents:
1. Drag the Agent population item from the General palette to the editor of Main (or
another container object).
2. In the wizard, specify the name of the agent class (e.g., Person), the name of the
population (e.g. people), the initial number of agents, and, optionally, the space
and network settings.

The population of agents, the environment, and the animation created by the wizard
There is also a general way of creating a new active object class, making it an agent
class, and embedding it into the container class. It includes the following steps.
To create a new active object class:
3. Right-click in the Projects tree and choose New | Active object class from the
context menu.
4. Enter the class name (by convention, the first letter of class name should be
capitalized) and click Finish.
5. The new class appears in the Projects tree and its editor opens. Note that the
class created this way is not embedded anywhere yet.
To make an active object class an agent class:
1. On the General page of your active object class properties, check the Agent
checkbox. This changes the base class from ActiveObject to Agent. The Agent
page of the properties becomes available and the icon of the class changes.
To embed one active object class into another:
1. Drag the class icon from the Projects tree to the editor of the container object.
An embedded object is created inside the container object. So far, there is a
single instance.
To replicate (to create multiple instances of) the embedded object:
1. Select the embedded object in the editor of the container object and select the
Replicated checkbox in its properties. Specify the initial number of objects (by
default, the initial number is 0).
Drag
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The general way of creating a replicated embedded object
Choose this menu
item to create a
new active object or
agent class
The new class appears in
the Projects tree
Select the Agent checkbox to make
the class an agent class
Drag the class icon to the editor of the another class to create an
embedded object
Drag
In the properties of the embedded object select the Replicated checkbox to
create multple instances
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Time in agent based models
When talking about agent based models, we need to distinguish between
asynchronous and synchronous time models. Asynchronous time means there is no
grid on the time axis and events may occur at arbitrary moments, exactly when they
are to occur. Synchronous time assumes things can only happen during discrete time
steps (they are snapped to the time grid), and nothing happens in between, see the
Figure. In synchronous models, on every time step, every agent checks whether it
needs to do something.
Do not confuse these time steps with the time steps of the numeric solver that solves
continuous-time algebraic and differential equations. The latter are typically smaller
and are out of the user control. The user cannot associate an arbitrary action with a
numeric step or even know how many times the equations are evaluated.

Synchronous and asynchronous time in agent based models
Some people think that agent based modeling assumes synchronous time (time steps).
This is not true. On the contrary, the most elegant and practically useful agent based
time
Agent 3
Agent 2
Agent 1
time
Agent 3
Agent 2
Agent 1
Step 1 Step 2 Step 3 Step 4 Step 5 Step 6
Preparation for the step,
no public state change occur
The actual step state
change occurs here
Synchronous time model
Asynchronous time model
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models are either asynchronous or have a mixture of asynchronous time and time
steps.
Synchronous time only makes sense in these cases:
When modeling an artificial world, which is synchronous by definition, such as
in The Game of Life or in The Shelling Segregation Model.
When the real world system is synchronous. These cases are rare. An example
would be a supply chain where inventory decisions are made, for example, on a
monthly basis.
When the agent needs to be updated on what happens around it to recalculate
internal variables and check conditions. For example, in the Hispanic
population acculturation model, a person periodically updates his contact rate
with other Hispanics, which depends on how many there are in his region. This
is, in a way, emulation of continuous time dynamics, typically done at time
steps larger than those of numerical solver.
In any case, we recommend using asynchronous time whenever possible, i.e., letting
things happen when they really are going to happen. Individual decisions like
purchases, job changes, moves, contacts between people, and stochastic events (like
breakdowns, recovery, etc.) can just occur at their exact times on the continuous time
axis. If there is still a need for time steps, such as in the latter case above, you can mix
time steps with continuous time. The model Air Defense System presented later in this
chapter is a good example of such a mixture.
Synchronous time inevitably introduces a certain degree of inaccuracy and raises a lot
of questions (and thus provides for numerous discussions at academic conferences
on agent based modeling). Do the results depend on the size of the time step? Do they
depend on the order the agents are processed within a time step (deterministic,
random)? Can we do a single loop across all agents or do we need to do two loops
within a step: the first one to prepare the action and the second one to execute it? In
The Game of Life, for example, you cannot do a single loop: all cells must see the
previous state of other cells before changing their own state. If a message is sent on a
certain time step, on what time step should it be delivered? In addition, synchronous
time models are typically computationally less efficient than asynchronous models as
every agent is visited on every time step, even if it is not doing anything.
Statistics collection in agent based models can also be synchronous and asynchronous.
For example, to find out the number of infected people in an epidemic model, you can
loop throughout the population and calculate the number at the time you need it, or
you can have an always up-to-date counter, which is incremented or decremented by
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the agents when they change their individual states. The synchronous statistics
collection is, however, more standard and common.
Space in agent based models
Space is widely used in agent based models. Even in the models where location and
movement of agents are not important from the model logic viewpoint, space is often
used to visualize the agents.

Space types in AnyLogic
AnyLogic supports four types of space:
Continuous two-dimensional space
Airplane
Agent
AnyLogic engine classes
User model
AgentContinuousGIS
AgentContinuous2D AgentContinuous3D
AgentContinuous AgentDiscrete2D
Combine Bomber Cell
moveTo( longitude,
latitude )
moveTo( x,y ) moveTo( x,y, z ) jumpToCell( row,
column )
X
Y
X
Y
Z
41844N
35942W
[4,3]
Subclass of
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Continuous three-dimensional space
Discrete space (grid of cells)
GIS (Geographic Information System) space
Correspondingly, there are four base classes for agents: AgentContinuous2D,
AgentContinuous3D, AgentDiscrete2D, and AgentContinuousGIS, see the Figure. Depending
on the space type, agents will have different space-related functions and properties,
like moveTo(), distanceTo(), jumpToCell(), velocity, column, row, On arrival action, etc.
Do not confuse the type of space and the type of animation: 2D continuous or discrete
space applies to the model logic only and does not prevent you from creating 3D
animation of the model.
The space settings are defined in two places: in the agent itself and in the Environment
object, see the Figure. The Environment object is required for the discrete and GIS space
types and is optional for continuous spaces. If the Environment object is used, its space
type should match the space type of all agents in the environment. If space is
irrelevant to the model logic and animation, you can choose arbitrary space settings.
Agents of different types, populations as well as individual agents, can belong to the
same environment object and share the same space. Environment can be used to
apply layouts to the agents; it also provides some space-related functions, such as
getAgentAtCell().

Space type settings
The space type of the
environment and the
agent must match
This puts the agent
population into the
environment
Airplane agent class
Main class
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Discrete space
Thinking of agents as cellular automata living in discrete space is another common
misconception (the first one is assumption of discrete time). Indeed, there are a lot
academic models that use discrete space (for example, The Game of Life, Schelling
Segregation, Heat Bugs, etc.), but in most industrial-level models, space-aware agents
live and move in continuous 2D or 3D space.

Examples of discrete spaces
With that said, we will, nevertheless, spend some time on discrete space because there
are cases when grid cells are natural and useful. For example, they can be used to
The Game of Life The Schelling Segregation Model
Wildfire Wandering Elephants
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model dynamics of vegetation, water resources, wildfire, or population density in a
geographical space. In such models, land is partitioned in square cells with each cell
being an agent with its own variables and behavior. Cells may interact with each other
and with other types of agents, for example, with agents freely moving in 2D space
that overlaps the discrete space, see the example model Wildfire described later in
this section.
Discrete space is a rectangular grid of cells, see the Figure. In AnyLogic, it is created
under the control of the Environment object.
To create an agent population living in discrete space:
2. Drag the Agent population object from the General palette to the graphical
editor.
3. In the Configure new environment page of the wizard choose Space type: Discrete
2D and set up the space size.
The options are shown in the Figure. You can choose the visual size of the entire space
and the number of rows and columns. A cell is, in general, a rectangle whose width
equals the space width divided by the number of columns, and height is the space
height divided by the number of rows. AnyLogic does not draw any grid lines or
rectangles for cells so it is up to you to decorate the space.

Discrete space options (Advanced page of the Environment properties)
The position of the discrete space rectangle on the canvas of the container object,
namely its top left corner, is defined by the position of the presentation of the discrete
Discrete space is chosen
The visual size of the (rectangular) space
The number of grid cells in this case is 200 * 200 = 40000
Moore (8 neighbors) or Euclidean (4 neighbors)
Arranged, random, or custom
Also: random, ring
lattice, small world,
and scale free
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space agent, see the Figure. Therefore, if there are multiple populations of agents in a
single discrete space environment, their presentation shapes should be located at the
same point.
A grid cell may be either empty or occupied by, at most, one agent. In many models
there is an agent in every cell. In other words, a cell is itself an agent. In such models,
agents typically do not move. In other models (for example, in the Schelling
Segregation Model), there are fewer agents than cells and agents can move from one
cell to another. In the latter case you can apply different layout types to the agents,
such as random or arranged.

Dimensions and neighborhood types of the discrete space
In discrete space there is a notion of neighborhood. There are two types of
neighborhoods: Moore and Euclidean (also known as Von Neumann). In the Moore
neighborhood a cell has eight neighbors, and the Euclidean neighborhood a cell has
four neighbors, see the Figure. The neighborhood type will affect the result of the
Moore neighborhood
(8 neighbor cells)
N
NE
E W
S
SE SW

NW

N
E W
S
Euclidean
neighborhood
(4 neighbor cells)
Position of the
presentation shape of
the discrete space agent
defines the top left
corner of the space
Width
Height
Columns
Rows
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getNeighbors() function. The constants NORTH, NORTHEAST, EAST, etc. defined in the Agent
class are used to address directions in the discrete space.
Although networks are not frequently used in conjunction with discrete space, a
choice of social networks is available, as you can see in the Figure.
Example: Schelling segregation
In the 1970s, Thomas Schelling, a Nobel prize winning economist, showed in his
articles dealing with racial dynamics that a preference that one's neighbors be of the
same color, or even a preference for a mixture "up to some limit", could lead to total
segregation, thus arguing that motives, malicious or not, were indistinguishable as to
explaining the phenomenon of complete local separation of distinct groups. He used
coins on graph paper to demonstrate his theory by placing pennies and nickels in
different patterns on the "board" and then moving them one by one if they were in an
"unhappy" situation. [Wikipedia].
We will implement Schellings model as a discrete space/discrete time agent based
model. The space represents a city, and each cell represents a house. Agents are
people and are two colors: yellow and red. Initially, people are randomly distributed
across the city. There are fewer people than houses, so there is always the possibility
that a person could move. The agent behavior in this model is very simple:
If the percentage of people of the same color among ones neighbors is lower
than a certain threshold value, the person feels unhappy and moves to a
randomly chosen empty house; otherwise the person is happy and does
nothing.
The threshold value (the preference for the same color) will be a parameter of the
model. Discrete time is originally assumed in this model: the evaluation of happiness
and moves are performed on discrete time steps. It is, however, possible to implement
an asynchronous version of the model.
Create the population of agents and discrete space:
1. Create a new model and drag the Agent population object from the General
palette to the editor of Main.
2. In the first page of the wizard, set the Population name to people, the Initial
population size to 8000, and choose rectangle as Animation.
3. In the next page of the wizard, choose the Discrete 2D space type and click
Finish.
4. Open the editor of Person, and add a new parameter. Set the parameter name
to color and choose Color as the type of the parameter.
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5. Type the following expression in the default value field of the parameter:
randomTrue( 0.5 ) ? red : yellow. This will ensure there is approximately the same
number of red and yellow people in the model.
6. Select the rectangle shape at the coordinate origin of Person and type color in
the Fill color field of its Dynamic property page.
7. Run the model. See the red and yellow people randomly distributed across
the discrete 100 by 100 space, see the Figure on the left.

The Schelling Segregation Model. Preference is set to 60%
Enable the discrete time in the model and implement agent behavior:
8. In Main, create a new parameter Preference of type double and default value 0.6.
This will be the minimum threshold value for the percentage of same color
neighbors.
9. Open the editor of Main, select the environment object, and select Enable steps in
its properties. This enables time steps and now we can type behavior rules in
the On before step and On step action fields of the agents.
10. Return to the editor of Person and add a Boolean variable happy with initial
values true.
11. Open the Agent page of Person properties and type the following code in the On
before step field:
Agent[] neighbors = getNeighbors(); //default neighborhood model is Moore
if( neighbors == null ) {
happy = true; //no neighbors are good neighbors
} else {
//count same color neighbors
int nsamecolor = 0;
Initially the population is evenly mixed ...and just after a few steps it is strongly segregated
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for( Agent a : neighbors )
if( ((Person)a).color.equals( color ) ) //need to cast generis Agent to Person
nsamecolor++;
//compare with minimum number
happy = nsamecolor >= neighbors.length * get_Main().Preference;
}
12. And in the field On step type:
if( ! happy )
jumpToRandomEmptyCell();
13. Run the model. Watch how the initially mixed population becomes almost
fully segregated in just a few steps; see the Figure on the right.
Even a slight preference to have at least 60% of neighbors of the same color leads to
strong segregation. You can link a slider control to the Preference parameter and
experiment with different values. Another implicit parameter of the model is the
occupancy of the space. In our case it is 80% because we have 8,000 people and
10,000 cells (houses). Occupancy affects the ability of the system to reach equilibrium
at high values of preference.
Some comments on the model implementation. Notice that in this model each step has
two phases: preparation and action (this scheme is shown in the Figure). An agent
evaluates its neighborhood in the preparation phase (On before step) and moves in the
action phase (On step). The agents internal variable happy is only needed to keep the
neighborhood evaluation results between the two phases.
The two-phase steps are necessary in this case because we must ensure people do not
move before everyone has evaluated their current neighborhood. If agents were doing
both things at once, some people would be evaluating their current neighborhood and
some would be evaluating intermediate neighborhoods in the middle of moving,
which does not make any sense.
? Convert this model into an asynchronous model. Instead of global steps you can use a
cyclic event with random recurrence time inside each agent. In the asynchronous
model you will not need to separate neighborhood evaluation and moving. Compare
the simulation results.
Example: Conways Game of Life
And of course we will show how to program, in AnyLogic, The Game of Life the
famous invention of John Conway that opened up a whole new field of mathematical
research, the field of cellular automata [Martin Gardner, Scientific American]. The
universe of The Game of Life is an infinite two-dimensional orthogonal grid of square
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cells, each of which is in one of two possible states: dead or alive. Every cell interacts
with its eight neighbors (Moore neighborhood model is assumed). At each step:
Any live cell with fewer than two live neighbors dies, as if caused by under-
population.
Any live cell with two or three live neighbors lives on to the next generation.
Any live cell with more than three live neighbors dies, as if by overcrowding.
Any dead cell with exactly three live neighbors becomes a live cell, as if by
reproduction.
The initial pattern constitutes the seed of the system, and the rules are applied
repeatedly to create further generations [Wikipedia].
The following is interesting in the context of the agent based modeling technique. One
may try to model a dead cell as a cell with no agent in it, and a live cell as a cell with an
agent. This however will lead to a very awkward algorithm of reproduction. A more
elegant implementation is having, in every cell, an agent with two possible states:
dead or alive.
Create discrete space and cells:
1. Create a new model and drag the Agent population object from the General
palette to the editor of Main.
2. In the first page of the wizard, set the Agent class name to Cell, Population name to
cells, the Initial population size to 10000, and choose rectangle as Animation.
3. In the next page of the wizard, choose the Discrete 2D space type and click
Finish.
4. Open the editor of Cell and add a Boolean variable alive with initial value
randomTrue( 0.2 ). 20% of cells will be randomly chosen to be initially alive.
5. Select the rectangle (the cell animation shape created by the wizard) and type
this code in the Fill color field of its Dynamic property page: alive ? mediumBlue :
lavender.
6. Run the model. See the initial random pattern.
Program the cell behavior:
7. Open the editor of Main, select the environment object, and select Enable steps in
its properties. This enables time steps and now we can type behavior rules in
the On before step and On step action fields of the agents.
8. Return to the editor of Cell and add an integer variable naliveneighbors. This
variable will keep a count of live neighbor cells between the evaluation and
action phases of the step, similar to the happy variable in the Schelling
Segregation Model.
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9. Open the Agent page of Cell properties and type the following code in the On
before step field:
naliveneighbrs = 0; //reset counter
for( Agent a : getNeighbors() ) //count all alive neighbors
if( ((Cell)a).alive ) //need to cast generic Agent to Cell
naliveneighbrs++;
10. And in the field On step type:
if( alive && naliveneighbrs < 2 )
alive = false; //die because of loneliness
else if( !alive && naliveneighbrs == 3 )
alive = true; //new cell is born
else if( alive && naliveneighbrs > 3 )
alive = false; //die because of overcrowding
11. Run the model and watch the evolution of this exciting artificial world.

The Game of Life
Although The Game of Life is a zero-player game, i.e., its evolution is entirely
determined by its initial state [Wikipedia], we can bring in some instructiveness. For
example, we can program the cell to toggle its state on mouse click. Then we will be
able to initiate additional waves of evolution in static or oscillating configurations.
Add cells reaction on mouse click:
12. In the editor of Cell, select the rectangle animation shape and type this code in
the On click field of its Dynamic property page: alive = ! alive;
13. Play with the model.
Initial configuraion (randomly generated) Step 5149
Pulsar
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Example: Wildfire
We will build a model of a wildfire. In this example we will show how the two types of
space, continuous and discrete, can be linked.
We will model vegetation as grid cells agents in discrete space. The burning time of a
cell is proportional to the amount of fuel in the cell, which will be randomly
generated at the model startup. While burning, the cell may cause ignition in the
adjacent cells. The ignition may also be caused by a bomb dropped by an aircraft an
agent moving in continuous 2D space that overlaps the discrete space.
As an additional exercise, we can introduce the wind into the model and make the
probability of ignition depend on the wind direction.
Create the grid cells:
1. Create a new model and drag the Agent population object to the editor of
Main. On the first page of the wizard type:
Agent class name: GridCell
Population name: gridcells
Initial population size: 40000
Animation: Rectangle
Press Next.
2. On the second page of the wizard, choose the Discrete 2D Space type for the
environment and make the following settings:
Width: 600
Height: 600
Columns: 200
Rows: 200
Initial location: Arranged
Press Finish. The wizard creates a new environment object, a population of
grid cells, and places the animation of a cell (a small blue rectangle) nearby.
3. Run the model. You should see a square space filled with 40,000 cells. You
should also see that the model consumes 60-70% of the default available
memory (64K). This is because of the number of agents.
4. Open the editor of GridCell. Select the blue rectangle and change both its width
and height to 3 pixels (these settings are on the Advanced property page). Now
the cell animations will not overlap.
5. Open the editor of the Simulation experiment and extend the frame (the default
model window border) to 800 by 650 pixels. The entire area now will be
visible.
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6. Open the Advanced page of the Simulation experiment and set Maximum available
memory to 512M. This will allow us to further add internal memory to our
agents.
The next step is to create the initial distribution of fuel in the cells. We could use real
geographical data, but in this simple model we will generate a random landscape with
forests and deserts.
Model the initial vegetation distribution:
7. Open the editor of GridCell and add a parameter Fuel of type double. This will be
the amount of fuel in the cell.
8. Go to the editor of Main and add a function makeUpInitialFuel(). Type this code
in the function body:
int N = environment.getColumns();
//generate forest "seeds"
for( int n = 0; n < 200; n++ ) { //200 seeds
int x = uniform_discr( 0, N - 1 );
int y = uniform_discr( 0, N - 1 );
for( int k = 0; k < 1000; k++ ) {
int i = ( x + (int)triangular(-50,0,50) + N ) % N; //%N to stay within the space
int j = ( y + (int)triangular(-50,0,50) + N ) % N;
((GridCell)( environment.getAgentAtCell( i, j ) )).Fuel += 0.25;
}
}
//smooth
for( int n = 0; n < 10; n++ ) {
for( GridCell gc : gridcells ) {
double sum = gc.Fuel;
for( AgentDiscrete2D ad : gc.getNeighbors() )
sum += ((GridCell)ad).Fuel; //getNeighbors() returns generic agent class
gc.Fuel = sum / (gc.getNeighbors().length + 1);
}
}
//find min/max fuel values
double min = +infinity;
double max = -infinity;
for( GridCell gc : gridcells ) {
double f = gc.Fuel;
if( f > max ) max = f;
if( f < min ) min = f;
}
//normalize into [-0.2,1.3]
for( GridCell gc : gridcells ) {
gc.Fuel -= min; //to [0..max-min]
gc.Fuel *= 1.5 / ( max - min ); //to [0..1.5]
gc.Fuel -= 0.2; //to [-0.2..1.3]
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}
//update cells
for( GridCell gc : gridcells )
gc.square.setFillColor( lerpColor( gc.Fuel, paleGoldenRod, new Color(65, 100, 0) ) );
9. In the Startup code of Main type: makeUpInitialFuel(); This will call the function
at the model startup to make up the initial landscape.
10. Run the model. The area covered with the cells should look like the one
shown in the Figure.


A randomly generated landscape
The landscape generation algorithm we used is just one of many possibilities. It starts
with several forest seeds randomly distributed all over the area. Then it creates
forests around those seeds by increasing the amount of fuel (the closer to the seed, the
larger the increase). We then normalize the values of the cell fuel to the interval [-
0.2,1.3] and modify the initial color of the cell animation to reflect the value of the Fuel.
Now we will program the cell behavior. In the first version of our model the fire
diffusion will not depend on the wind.
Clearing
Dense forest
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Program the cell behavior (the fire diffusion):
11. In the editor of GridCell create the statechart, as shown in the Figure.
12. Select the cell animation (the rectangle) and type this code in the On click field
of its Dynamic property page: statechart.receiveMessage( "Ignition" ); This will
allow us to manually initiate the wildfire.
13. Run the model and try clicking in the areas of various fuel densities. See how
the wildfire spreads.
The behavior of a grid cell needs detailed explanation. The cell can be in one of three
states: Normal, Burning, and BurnedOut. The transition from Normal to Burning is triggered
by the message Ignition, which may come from an adjacent cell, or from a mouse
click (later on, when we add an aircraft, it will be coming from the aircraft as well).
The burning time of a cell is set to the value of the Fuel parameter (see the transition
OutOfFuel): the more wood that is in the cell, the longer the cell will burn.

A vegetation grid cell behavior and a wildfire caused by a mouse click
On click: statechart.receiveMessage( "Ignition" );
Triggered by: Message: Ignition
Guard: Fuel > 0
Entry action: rectangle.setFillColor( red );
Triggered by: Rate: 5
Action:
for( int i=NORTH; i<=SOUTHWEST; i++ ) {
GridCell gc = (GridCell)( getAgentNextToMe( i ) );
if( gc != null ) //null may be at the space border
if( randomTrue( 0.2 ) )
send( "Ignition", gc );
}
Action: rectangle.setFillColor( lerpColor( Fuel, feldspar, darkGray ) );
Triggered by: Timeout: Fuel
The fire stopped
here because of
lack of fuel
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The most interesting part of the statechart, however, is the transition SpreadFire. First
of all, this transition is internal to the state Burning, which means its execution will not
reset the timeout of the transition OutOfFuel. SpreadFire will be executed at the rate of 5,
i.e., on average 5 times per time unit. Therefore, the longer the cell is burning, the
more occurrences of SpreadFire there will be. Upon each occurrence, the cell iterates
across all neighbor cells. (In the for loop we use the knowledge about the values of the
direction constants: NORTH is 0, SOUTH is 1, , SOUTHWEST is 7. This knowledge can be
obtained from AnyLogic API reference.) The message Ignition is sent to each of the
neighbor cells with 20% probability.
Try to increase the real time scale and see how fast the model is. This model is
computationally very efficient because it is completely asynchronous; there are no time
steps. There are quite a few cells (40,000), but inactive cells do not consume any CPU
time so there is no global loop across all cells.
Our next step is to model the aircraft that drops bombs as it flies over the area. The
aircraft will be an agent living in continuous 2D space that overlaps with the discrete
space. This time we will not be using the Agent population wizard because there will
be only one aircraft. It will live in 2D space and will not need an environment object.
Create the Aircraft agent class:
14. Right-click the model (top-level) item in the Projects tree and choose New |
Active object class from the context menu. Name the class Aircraft and press
Finish.
15. Select the Agent checkbox in the Aircraft class properties.
16. Drag the Plane picture from the Pictures palette to (0,0) of the Aircraft editor.
Rotate the picture so that the aircraft looks towards the right (this side of the
agent moves forward), and reduce the size by 50%.
17. Open the Agent page of the Aircraft properties and make sure the space type is
Continuous 2D. On the same page set the velocity of the aircraft to 30.
18. Return to the editor of Main and drag the Aircraft class icon from the Projects
tree there. The animation of the airplane appears at (0,0) of Main. Move the
aircraft animation to the same point where the cell animation is located. This
will synchronize the animation locations.
Let the aircraft fly over the area:
19. Type this code in the Startup code field of the aircraft:
setXY( 0, uniform( 400, 600 ) ); //set the initial location
moveTo( 600, uniform( 0, 200 ) ); //start moving towards the right
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The initial position is chosen randomly at the west edge of the area, closer to
the south, and the final position is on the east side, closer to the north.
20. Run the model and see the aircraft flying.
Now we will model dropping the bombs. This is exactly where the two types of space
will be linked in our model.

Wildfire caused by bombing
Model bombing:
21. Return to the editor of the Aircraft class and add an Event object. Name the
event bomb. Set the event Mode to cyclic and set Recurrence time to 5.
22. Type this code in the Action field of the event:
EnvironmentDiscrete2D env = get_Main().environment;
double cellw = env.getWidth() / env.getColumns(); //cell width in pixels
double cellh = env.getHeight() / env.getRows(); //cell height in pixels
//transalate (X,Y) into (row,column)
int c = (int)( getX() / cellw );
int r = (int)( getY() / cellh );
//send the message to the cell at that position
env.getAgentAtCell( r, c ).receive( "Ignition" );
Dense forest
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23. Open the Agent page of the Aircraft properties and type this code in the On
arrival field: bomb.reset(); This will turn off the cyclic bomb event when the
aircraft has reached the edge of the area.
24. Run the model.
While the aircraft is flying, it drops a bomb every 5 time units. The bomb ignites the
cell right below the aircraft. The translation of the continuous coordinates (X,Y) into
the discrete coordinates (row, column) is done using the grid cell width and height.
? Modify the model to take wind into consideration. Make the probability of passing the
fire from cell to cell depend on the wind direction, as shown in the Figure. Assume the
wind direction can take eight values {NORTH, NORTHEAST,} and the strength of the
wind is always the same.

The probability of passing the fire depending on the wind direction
Tip: Program the function that converts the direction constant to angle, and then
another one that compares two angles and returns the probability. Use the probability
in the action of the SpreadFire transition instead of 0.2.
Discrete space API
The base class for agents that live in discrete space is AgentDiscrete2D, which is a
subclass of Agent, which, in turn, is a subclass of ActiveObject. In addition to the
functionality common to all kinds of agents, AgentDiscrete2D offers the following API:
int getC() returns the column of the agent's cell.
int getR() returns the row of the agent's cell.
jumpToCell( int r, int c ) moves the agent into a cell with the given row and
column.
setCell( int r, int c ) puts the agent into a given cell (initialization use only).
0.5
0.3
0.3
0.1
0.1
0.05
0.05
0.03
NE
The wind
direction
The probability of
passing fire from
cell to cell
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boolean jumpToRandomEmptyCell() finds a random empty cell and places the
agent there.
moveToNextCell( int dir ) moves the agent to an adjacent cell in a given direction.
swapWithAgent( AgentDiscrete2D anotherAgent ) swaps the cell location of this
agent with another agent. Swap is the only way for an agent to move in a fully
occupied space.
swapWithCell( int r, int c ) swaps this agent with an agent at the cell with the
given row and column.
swapWithNextCell( int dir ) swaps the agent with an agent at the adjacent cell in a
given direction.
int[] findRandomEmptyCell() tries to find a randomly located empty cell and
returns its row and column in the array with two elements.
Agent getAgentAtCell( int r, int c ) returns the agent located in the cell with a given
row and column, or null.
Agent getAgentNextToMe( int dir ) returns the agent next to this agent in a given
direction, if any.
AgentDiscrete2D[] getNeighbors() returns the array of neighbor agents, subject to
the current neighborhood type (Euclidean {N, S, E, W}, Moore - also {..,NW, NW,
SE, SW}). The elements in the returned array are of the base class
AgentDiscrete2D, and not of the same class as this agent because, in general, there
can be more than one type of agent in the same space.
In addition, the environment object supporting 2D continuous space (base class
EnvironmentDiscrete2D) offers these functions:
int[] findRandomEmptyCell() tries to find a randomly located empty cell and
return its row and column in the array with two elements.
AgentDiscrete2D getAgentAtCell(int r, int c) returns the agent located in the cell
with a given row and column, or null.
int getColumns() Returns the number of columns in the space.
int getRows() Returns the number of rows in the space.
Continuous 2D and 3D space
Continuous space (two- or three-dimensional) in AnyLogic is infinite space with real
number coordinates (Java type for coordinate is double). Continuous 2D space is
assumed by default when a new agent class is created. If you want to apply standard
layouts or networks to the agents, you should use the Environment object. Otherwise,
the Environment object can be omitted in the model.
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To create an agent population living in continuous 2D or 3D space:
25. Drag the Agent population object from the General palette to the graphical
editor.
26. In the Configure new environment page of the wizard choose Space type:
Continuous 2D or Continuous 3D and choose the width and height, and the initial
layout.
The options of the Environment object related to the continuous space are shown in the
Figure. The Width and Height are not the bounds of the entire space; the space is always
infinite and unbounded. These are the bounds of the layout, and they apply each time
the layout is applied (in most cases, the layout is applied once, when the model
initializes). The agents can freely cross these bounds when they move.

Continuous 2D space options (Advanced page of the Environment properties)
When you create an agent population, or when you drop an individual agent on the
canvas of the container object, its animation is also placed there. The design-time
position of the animation defines the point where the agent with coordinates (0,0) will
be displayed at runtime (see the Figure), but does not affect the actual coordinates of
the agent.
If there is more than one agent population or individual agent and, correspondingly,
more than one embedded agent animation, it makes sense to place all the animations
into the same point to make sure that at runtime the positions of the agent animations
are consistent with their coordinates.
Continuus 2D space is chosen
The bounding rectangle of the layout
Random, arranged, ring,
spring mass, or custom
Also: random, ring
lattice, small world,
and scale free
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To see the agent animation in the 3D scene, make sure its Show in 3D scene checkbox is
selected.

The meaning of the width, height, and the layout properties
Space type: Continuous 2D
Width: 200
Height: 200
Layout type: Random
Editors coordinate origin The animation of agents from the population houses.
The agent with coordinates (0,0) will be displayed here
The rectangle 200 x 200.
When the layout is
applied, these bounds
are assumed
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Movement in continuous space
The agent movement is always piecewise linear: the agent moves along straight line
segments at constant velocity. To initiate a straight-line movement from the current
position to the point with coordinates (Xb,Yb), you should call the function moveTo( Xb,
Yb ), in 3D space this is moveTo( Xb, Yb, Zb ). Optionally, you can suggest a polyline-based
trajectory for the agent movement by providing the polyline as the last parameter of
the moveTo() function, e.g. moveTo( x, y, z, polyline ), see the Figure. The agent will first
move from its current location to the closest point on the polyline along the shortest
straight line, then move along the polyline to the point on the polyline closest to the
destination, and then straight to the destination point. You can model movement along
curved trajectories by approximating them by polylines.
The agent stops when it reaches the destination point, or when stop() or jumpTo() is
called. You can also call moveTo() another time while the agent is moving, and it will
then change its direction.
The velocity of the agent is set at the bottom of its Agent property page and can be
changed at runtime by calling the function setVelocity(). If this function is called when
the agent is moving, it continues to move with the new velocity. To model
acceleration/deceleration you can break down the movement into small segments and
increase or decrease the agent velocity at the beginning of a segment.

Movement in continuous 2D space
(Xa,Ya)
(Xb,Yb)
moveTo( Xb, Yb, polyline )
(Xa,Ya)
(Xb,Yb)
moveTo( Xb, Yb )
On arrival is called here
This is the front side of
the agent animation
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When an agent moves, the right-hand side of its animation is the front side. To change
the front side, you need to rotate the animation.
When the agent successfully reaches the destination point, its On arrival code (specified
in the Agent property page) is executed, and active statecharts transitions waiting on
arrival are triggered, if there are any. The call of moveTo() followed by an arrival-
triggered transition is a frequently used pattern.
To calculate the distance to another agent or to a point you can use the functions
distanceTo( x, y ), distanceTo( x, y, z ), and distanceTo( agent ).
To detect the moment when a geometric condition over the moving agents becomes
true (for example, when two agents get close to each other), you can use two
approaches:
Analytical. You can obtain the time analytically using your high school
knowledge of physics and geometry, and then schedule the required action at
the exact moment of time with the help of event or transition. The solution will
be 100% accurate and very efficient computationally.
Test the condition periodically (polling). You can introduce time steps ("ticks")
and test the condition on each tick. Such a model will consume a lot more CPU
power, and the detection will occur with an error (the larger the time step, the
larger the error), or can be even missed. However, this approach is simpler and
also more general.
The example Air defense system presented below demonstrates most of continuous
space modeling techniques.
Example: Air defense system
We will build a simple model of a radar-based air defense system. All types of agents
in this model (bomber aircrafts, radars, missiles, bombs, and buildings) live and
interact in continuous 3D space. We will use various kinds of movement and space
sensing techniques.
Bombers are sent to destroy ground assets (buildings) compactly located in a certain
area. One aircraft is launched per building. Aircrafts carry bombs. To complete its
mission successfully, an aircraft needs to drop a bomb within 500 meters ground
distance from the target building while flying, at most, at 2 km altitude. Having
completed the mission, the bomber returns to the base using a higher altitude route.
The bomber speed is 600 km/h.
The buildings are protected by the air defense system, which consists of two radars
equipped with guided surface-to-air missiles. A radar can simultaneously guide up to
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two missiles. A missile is launched once the bomber enters the radars coverage area,
which is a hemisphere of 6.5 kilometer radius around the radar. The missile speed is
900 km/h. The missile explodes once it gets as close as 300 meters to the aircraft. If
the missile exits the radar coverage area before it hits the aircraft, it destroys itself.
Create the scene:
1. Create a new model. Drag a Rectangle shape into the editor of Main, place its
top left corner at (0,0), and set its size to 800 x 600. We will assume 10 pixels
per kilometer scale.
2. Set the Line color of the rectangle to No color and use Earth texture for the Fill
color.
3. Check the Show in 3D scene checkbox on the General page of the rectangle
properties. On the Advanced property page set the rectangles Z to -1 and Z-
height to 1.
4. Finally, on the General page check the Lock checkbox. This prevents the
rectangle from being selected and we will be able to freely draw on top of it.
5. Open the 3D palette and drag the 3D window to the editor of Main. Place the
window below the ground rectangle, for example, at (0,850) and extend it to
the size of 800 by 550 pixels.
6. From the Presentation palette drag the View area and place it at (0,800). Set its
Name to view3D and Title to 3D.
7. Create another view area at (0,0) with the name view2D and title 2D.
8. Run the model. Switch between the 2D and 3D views.
Create the buildings:
9. Draw a closed polyline on top of the ground rectangle, as shown in the Figure.
Name it protectedArea. Our buildings will be located within its bounds.
10. Drag the Agent population object from the General palette to Main (it makes
sense to place it to the left of the ground rectangle so it does not interfere
with the animation).
11. On the first page of the wizard, type:
Agent class name: Building
Population name: buildings
Initial population size: 10
Press Next.
12. On the second page of the wizard, choose the Continuous3D Space type for the
environment. Press Finish. The wizard creates a new environment object, a
population of buildings, and places the animation of the building nearby, see
the Figure.
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13. Drag the animation of asset to (0,0) to synchronize the coordinate systems of
the agents (buildings) and the Main object.
14. Run the model. See 10 animation shapes of the buildings (so far a person
shape is used, but we will change it later) randomly distributed in a cubicle
400 by 400 by 400 pixel space. (This was the default space size setting in the
environment object. We do not need to change it as we will customize the
asset locations.)

The scene of the Air Defense System model
In the next phase, we will change the animation of building to 3D House object and
place assets on the ground within the protectedArea.
The protectedArea polyline
Move the building animation to (0,0)
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Change the animation of building and set the buildings locations:
15. Open the editor of Building, delete the animation created by the wizard, and
drag the House object from the 3D Objects palette to (0,0). Set the Scale of the
object to 25%.
16. In the General page of the Building properties write the following Startup code:
Point pt = get_Main().protectedArea.randomPointInside();
setXYZ( pt.x, pt.y, 0 );
This will place the house on the ground and within the polyline bounds.
17. Run the model and see where the buildings are located. Note that the polyline
protectedArea is visible in the 2D view, but not in the 3D view. This is because
we have not selected its Show in 3D scene property.
Now we will create the bomber aircrafts and let them fly to the buildings and return to
the base.
Create the Bomber agent class:
18. Return to the editor of Main and create another Agent population (place it
nearby the environment object to the left of animation). In the wizard, make
these settings:
Agent class name: Bomber
Population name: bombers
Initial population size: 0
Environment: Use existing (environment)
Press Finish.
19. In the editor of Main, select the default animation of the bomber (it should be
a blue 2D person), drag it to (0,0), and check the Show in 3D scene checkbox in
its properties. The animations of building and bomber are now at the same
location, one on top of the other.
20. Open the editor of Bomber, delete the default animation and replace it with the
Airliner 3D object. Rotate the airliner so it is oriented rightwards and set its
scale to 50%.
21. On the Agent page of the Bomber properties select the Continuous 3D space type,
deselect the Environment defines initial location checkbox, and set the initial
coordinates to (0,0,50). The bomber will therefore fly into the model space at
5km altitude.
Set the model time units and specify the velocity of the aircraft:
22. Select the model (topmost) item in the Projects tree and choose minutes as the
model Time units in the Properties view.
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23. Return to the editor of Bomber. On the Agent page of its properties set the
Velocity of the bomber to 100.
With the 10 pixels per kilometer spatial scale we assumed earlier, the bomber will
cover 100 pixels = 10 km in one minute (time unit). This gives us 600 km per hour.
Create the initial version of the bomber behavior:
24. In the editor of Bomber, create a parameter target of type Building (select Other
and type Building). This will be the target building in the bomber mission.
25. Create the bomber statechart, as shown in the Figure.
The bombers will be parameterized with the target buildings at creation time, fly
directly there, gradually lowering the altitude from 5 to 1.8 kilometers, and then
return to the initial point where they will delete themselves from the model. In the On
enter field of both states we call the moveTo() function of the agent to initiate
movement, and then the transition from the state is triggered by the agent arrival.
This pattern is very common in agent based models.

The statechart of the Bomber
Program mission assignment:
26. Open the editor of Main. Add an Event object (from the General palette). Set the
event properties, as shown in the Figure.
27. Run the model.
The cyclic event periodically looks for a building without a bomber already flying to it.
We use iteration across the agent population twice: in the outer loop we iterate across
buildings, and in the inner loop we iterate across bombers. If such a building is found,
we create a new bomber agent and assign the building to the bomber as the target (as
Arliner 3D object at 25% scale
Parameter of type Building
Entry action:
moveTo( target.getX(), target.getY(), 18 );
Triggered by: Agent arrival
Entry action:
moveTo( 0, 0, 50 );
get_Main().remove_bombers( this );
Triggered by:
Agent arrival
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long as the Bomber agent has one parameter target of type Building, AnyLogic generates
a constructor with that parameter).

Mission assignment implemented using cyclic event
Upon creation, a bomber takes direction to the target building, makes an instant u-
turn, and heads back to (0,0). So far, the bombers use straight line trajectories this
is assumed by the moveTo( x, y, z ) method. We will now draw the 3D escape
trajectory for the return route and set the bombers to follow that trajectory on the
way back. We will use another version of the method: moveTo( x, y, z, polyline ).
Draw the 3D escape route and let the bombers follow in on the way back:
28. Open the editor of Main and draw a polyline, as shown in the Figure. This time
you can use the polyline object from the 3D palette and not from the
The building is passed into
the bombers constructor
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Presentation palette, because it has the Show in 3D scene property already
selected.
29. Set the name of the polyline to escapeRoute, and the Line width to 2 pixels. On
the Advanced page set Z to 20 (this will be the base Z-coordinate of the
polyline) and Z-height to 2 pixels.

Bombers return to base using a route defined by a polyline
30. Open the Points page of the polyline and modify the individual Z coordinates of
the points approximately, as shown in the Figure. The idea is to have the
These points are above
the base Z level
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initial section of the polyline at about the same altitude as the bomber attack
altitude (20 pixels = 2 km is the base Z), and then gradually raise it to 9 km
(base 20 + 70, which is Z of the last point).
31. Open the editor of Bomber and change the Entry action of the state Away to:
moveTo( 0, 0, 90, get_Main().escapeRoute ); (We need to put the prefix get_Main()
before the escapeRoute because this graphical object is located not inside the
Bomber agent, but one level up, in Main.)
32. Run the model. See how the bombers return to the base. (The escapeRoute
polyline is visible at runtime. If you would like to hide it, you can deselect the
checkbox Show at runtime in its properties.)
Note that when you ask an agent to move from the point A (its current position) to the
point B using a polyline, both points A and B do not need to be located on the polyline.
The agent will calculate and use the shortest straight route to and from the polyline.
The next step is to model the interaction between the bomber and the target building.
We will use yet another agent type, Bomb. When approaching the attack distance, the
bomber will drop a bomb onto the building. When the bomb reaches the building, the
building will change its state to Destroyed.
Although aircrafts carry bombs, in the model the Bomb agents will not be located
inside the Bomber agent, but at the same level as the bombers and the buildings
directly inside the Main object. With this model architecture it will be easier to place
bombs in the same space.
Create the Bomb agent class and program its interaction with the building:
33. Return to the editor of Main and create another Agent population. In the wizard,
make these settings:
Agent class name: Bomb
Population name: bombs
Initial population size: 0
Environment: Use existing (environment)
Press Finish.
34. In the editor of Main, select the default animation of the bomb, drag it to (0,0)
where all other agent animations are already located, and check the Show in 3D
scene checkbox in its properties.
35. Open the editor of Bomb, delete the default animation and replace it with the
Oval dragged from the 3D palette (this will actually be a cylinder). Place the
oval at exactly (0,0), set its Fill color to black, Line color to No line, radius to 2
pixels, and Z-height to 5.
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The interaction between the bomber, the bomb, and the target building
setXYZ( bomber.getX(), bomber.getY(), bomber.getZ() );
Entry action:
moveTo( target.getX(), target.getY(), target.getZ() );
Triggered by: Agent arrival
Action: deliver( "You are destroyed", target );
get_Main().remove_bomb( this );
Bomb agent
Building agent
a semi-transparent cube (Z-height: 10 )
Dynamic Visible: destroyed
Agent property page:
Bomber agent
Agent property page:
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36. In the Agent page of the Bomb properties, select the Continuous 3D space type.
37. Create two parameters of the Bomb agent: bomber of type Bomber and target of
type Building.
38. Draw the statechart of the Bomb as shown in the Figure.
As you can see, the bomb sends the message "You are destroyed" to the building when
it reaches the building, and then immediately destroys itself.
We are using the method deliver(), which delivers the message instantly (within the
same event) instead of the method send(), which does it in a separate event (still at the
model time though). This is because the message sent by the method send() will be
discarded once the sender agent ceases to exist.
Now we will implement the building's reaction on the bomb explosion. We will add a
Boolean flag destroyed and add some animation.
39. Open the editor of Building and add a Boolean variable destroyed with initial
value false.
40. Open the Agent page of the Building properties and type this code in the On
message received field: destroyed = true; We are not analyzing the content of the
message because, for now, the only message the building may receive is the
message from a bomb.
41. Create a cube around the house animation of semi-transparent red color (use
the Rectangle shape from the 3D palette). On the Dynamic page of the cube
properties type destroyed in the field Visible. This way the red cube will appear
around the house once the house is bombed.
The missing piece is the bomber's decision to drop a bomb. We could do it exactly
upon arrival to the point directly above the target building (in the action of the
transition from ToTarget and Away states). However, according to our problem
definition, the bomber can do it once it gets within 500 m ground distance from the
target and, at most, at 2 km altitude. To detect the moment when these conditions
hold, we will introduce time steps in our model and let the bomber evaluate these
conditions on each time step. The time will now be a mixture of synchronous ticks and
asynchronous events.
Add time steps and make the bomber sense the attack conditions:
42. Open the editor of Main, select the environment object, and check the Enable
steps checkbox in its properties. In the Step duration field, type second().
The default step size is one time unit (one minute in our case). However, given the
velocity of the aircraft is as high as 600 km/h, under the default time step setting, the
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bomber will be checking the attack conditions every 10 km, which is unacceptable if
we want to detect reaching 500 m ground distance from the building. Therefore, we
set the time step to one second so that the bomber will perform the checks every 167
m (10 km divided by 60). Alternatively, to using the function second(), we could write
1./60.
43. Open the editor of Bomber and add a condition-triggered event as shown in
the Figure.
Notice that, when creating a new bomb, the bomber passes itself (this) and the target
building to the bomb constructor parameters. Another thing to notice is the
calculation of the ground distance, i.e., the distance of the projections of the two
objects on the ground. The bomber uses the function distanceTo(), but provides its own
Z-coordinate instead of the building Z-coordinate.
44. In the Agent page of the Bomber properties, find the On step field and type
onChange();
45. Run the model. Use the 3D view and zoom in to watch how the bombs are
dropped and destroy the buildings.
You probably have noticed that, although all buildings are destroyed by the very first
bomber attack, the new bombers are, nevertheless, sent to the target area. This
happens because the mission assignment is done regardless of the state of the target
assets. We will now fix it.
46. Open the editor of Main and modify the Action code of the assignMission event:
for( Building bldg : buildings ) {
//destroyed buldings are ignored
if( bldg.destroyed )
continue;
//look up if a bomber is handling it already

Now the bombers are not sent to bomb the already destroyed buildings.
The last phase of the model development is to add radars and radar-guided missiles.
Both will be agents in our model. Similar to the bomber aircraft, the radar will scan the
air within its coverage zone on each time step (every second). Once it detects a
bomber and is able to guide yet another missile, it will launch one. The missile, similar
to the bomb, will engage with the bomber (the radar will pass the bomber to the
missile constructor), and explode once it gets as close as 300 m to the bomber.
As you can see, we are extensively using discrete time (clock ticks) in this model to
detect when certain geometric conditions defined over moving objects become true.
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Alternative approach would be to analytically calculate the exact moments of time
when a bomber gets close enough to the target to drop a bomb, enters the radar
coverage zone, or when a missile catches up with the bomber. Given linear or
piecewise-linear trajectories and constant velocities of bombers, this would be a task
of medium (high school level) mathematical complexity and you can do it as an
exercise. The resulting model will be more accurate and the simulation will be much
more efficient. However, the approach we chose (recalculation of the geometric
conditions on each time step) is simpler, no analytical skills are required at all, and it
is also more general. It will work regardless of the type of movement.
Create the Radar agent class:
47. In the Projects tree right-click the model (topmost) item and choose New active
object class from the context menu. Give the new class the name Radar.
48. The editor of Radar opens and its properties are displayed. In the properties
window check the Agent checkbox to enable the agent functionality.
49. Open the Agent page of the Radar properties. Choose Continuous 3D space type.
Uncheck the Environment defines initial location checkbox.
50. Choose the animation shape for the radar. Among the standard 3D objects
available in AnyLogic 6.9, you can use, for example, the Truck object (let it be
the mobile air defense system). Drag it to the coordinate origin of the Radar
editor and reduce the scale to 25%.
51. Add two parameters to the Radar class: x and y, both of type double. These will
be the coordinates of the radar.
52. Open again the Agent page of the radar properties and specify the initial
coordinates of the radar: (x,y,0).
Notice that this time we did not use the Agent population wizard to create the Radar
class but used the New active object class command instead. This is because we do not
plan to have a population of radars. We will create two individual radars in the model
and specify individual parameters to each of them.
Create two radars in the Main class:
53. Open the editor of Main and drag the Radar item from the Projects tree there. An
instance of the Radar agent class is created in Main and its presentation is
placed at the (0,0) point. Name this radar radar1.
54. In the properties of radar1 type environment in the Environment field. This adds
the radar1 agent into the same environment where bombers, bombs, and
buildings already are.
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55. Ctrl+drag the radar1 agent to create its copy. The name of the copy will be
radar2, which is OK for us. In the properties of radar2 press the Create
presentation button.
56. Specify the coordinates of the radars by providing the values for their x and y
parameters. Place radar1 at, for example, (300, 350) and radar2 at (350,200).
57. Run the model and make sure the radars are located on the bombers route.
Now we will create the Missile class. The missile will be very similar to the bomb. It will
have a limited lifetime from launch to explosion and will be parameterized by the
target aircraft and the guiding radar. Unlike the bomb, however, the missile will
periodically be adjusting its trajectory to catch up the moving target.
Create the Missile agent class:
58. In the editor of Main, create yet another Agent population. In the wizard, make
these settings:
Agent class name: Missile
Population name: missiles
Initial population size: 0
Environment: Use existing (environment)
Press Finish.
59. In the editor of Main, select the default animation of the missile, drag it to (0,0)
where all other agent animations are already located, and check the Show in 3D
scene checkbox in its properties.
60. Open the editor of Missile, delete the default animation, and replace it with the
Oval dragged from the 3D palette (just like in the bomb, this will be a cylinder).
Place the oval at exactly (0,0), set its Fill color to royalBlue, Line color to No line,
radius to 1 pixel, and Z-height to 20.
61. In the editor of Missile, right-click the oval (it is now a small object at the
coordinate origin) and choose Grouping | Create a group from the context menu.
This creates a new group and adds the oval to it. In the Dynamic property page
of the group, type PI/2 in the Rotation Y field.
The reason for placing the cylinder in the group is that, by default, the cylinder stands
on the (X,Y) plane and grows upwards along the Z axis. When the agent moves,
however, its animation moves to the right along the X axis. Therefore, we need to
rotate the missile body around the Y axis so that it is oriented towards the movement
direction. The group (unlike individual 3D shapes) can be rotated around all three
axes, and therefore is the universal method of changing the orientation of 3D shapes at
runtime.
62. On the Agent page of the Missile properties, select the Continuous 3D space type.
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63. On the same page, set the Velocity of the missile to 150. Remember that the
model time units are minutes and the chosen space scale is 10 pixels per
kilometer. The missile therefore will cover 150/10 = 15 kilometers in one
minute, which gives us the desired 900 km/h.
64. Create two parameters of the Missile agent: radar of type Radar and target of
type Bomber.
65. Draw the statechart of the Missile, as shown in the Figure.

The internals of the Missile object
It makes sense to discuss the missile trajectory adjustment. The transition Adjust
executes periodically every 0.01 minute. It has no action, but it makes the missile
statechart re-enter the Flying state. Therefore, the entry action of the Flying state also
executes every 0.01 minutes and makes the missile head the current position of the
bomber. This way of navigation is, of course, far from ideal, but it will give us a nice
curved trajectory of the missile. The condition of the AtTarget transition will also be re-
evaluated each 0.01 minutes, or every 150 meters, which is good enough to detect the
explosion moment. The same is true for the transition OutOfRange, which is
responsible for checking if the missile leaves the radar coverage area and can no
longer be guided.
Program the missile launch and guiding:
66. Open the editor of Radar and add a parameter Range of type double and default
value 65. This is the radius of the radar coverage zone (65 pixels equals 6.5
km).
Here is the group containg the cylinder (the missile body animation)
Action: setXYZ( radar.getX(), radar.getY(), radar.getZ() );
Entry action:
moveTo( target.getX(), target.getY(), target.getZ() );
Timeout: 0.01
Triggered by: Condition: distanceTo( target ) < 3
Action: deliver( "You are destroyed", target );
get_Main().remove_missiles( this );
Triggered by: Condition: distanceTo( radar ) > radar.range
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67. Create a Collection inside the Radar. Name it guidedmissiles and set the element
type to Missile. This collection will contain the missiles currently guided by the
radar.
68. Open the Agent page of the Radar properties and type this code in the On step
field:
for( Bomber b : get_Main().bombers ) { //for all bombers in the air
if( guidedmissiles.size() >= 2 ) //if can't have more engagements, do nothing
break;
if( distanceTo( b ) < range ) { //if within engagement range
//already engaged by another missile?
boolean engaged = false;
for( Missile m : get_Main().missiles ) {
if( m.target == b ) {
engaged = true;
break;
}
}
if( engaged )
continue; //proceed to the next bomber
//engage (create a new missile)
Missile m = get_Main().add_missiles( this, b );
guidedmissiles.add( m ); //register guided missile
}
}
Scanning of the zone is done on every time step, i.e., every second (remember that the
step size is defined in the environment object). The radar iterates across all bombers in
the model and then across all missiles in the air. If a bomber without a missile is
found, a new missile is launched.
69. Open the editor of Missile and add one more line to the Action of the Exploded
final state:
radar.guidedmissiles.remove( this ); //unregister with the radar
get_Main().remove_missiles( this ); //delete self
We need to let the radar know that the missile has reached the aircraft and
exploded so that the radar can launch and guide another missile.
70. Run the model. In the 3D view see how the missiles are launched, catch up
with the bombers, and disappear.
So far the missiles do no harm to the bombers because we have not programmed the
bombers reaction on the missile explosion. This will be the last bit of our model.
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Model the bomber destruction:
71. Modify the statechart of the Bomber agent, as shown in the Figure. Draw a
composite state around the ToTarget and Away states, and then add a transition
triggered by the message You are destroyed leading to another final state.
72. Run the model.

The modified statechart of the Bomber
Depending on the layout drawn, some bombers may be intercepted, and some may be
able to complete their mission. You can perform various interesting experiments with
this model. For example, you can optimize the location of radars, determine the time
interval between the bombers, (which secures at least some of them), and so on.
On the animation side, you can visualize the radar coverage area. For that, you will
need a 3D sphere object of semitransparent color, which you can add to the animation
or radar and scale dynamically according to the current value of the parameter range.
Triggered by: message You are destroyed
Action: get_Main().remove_bombers( this );

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Example: Agent leaving a movement trail
In the models where agents represent moving physical objects, we sometimes need to
see the trajectory of the agent movement. In this example, we will create a very simple
model with moving agents using the standard agent based template and then add a
movement trail to the agents.
Create an agent based model with agents moving randomly:
1. Press the New button on the toolbar. In the New model wizard, enter the model
name, and on the next page choose Use template to create model option and
Agent Based model template. Press Next.
2. In the next page of the wizard (Setup agent properties), set the Initial number of
agents to 3 and press Next.
3. In the next page of the wizard (Configure space and animation properties), leave
the default settings and press Next.
4. In the next page of the wizard (Configure network properties), check the
checkbox Add random movement and press Finish. A new agent based model is
created and the editor of its Main object opens.
5. Run the model. Three agents are moving randomly within the space 500x500
pixels.
In the model created by the wizard, each agent chooses a random point in the
500x500 space and starts moving there see the Startup code of Person. Upon arrival,
an agent chooses another random point and continues to the new target, this is
defined in the On arrival field, in the Agent page of the Person properties.
Create a polyline that will be used to show the agent trail:
6. In the Projects tree double-click the agent class Person to open its editor.
7. Open the Presentation palette, drag the Polyline object and drop it anywhere in
the editor of Person.
8. In the General page of the polyline properties set the name to trail.
9. In the Dynamic page of the polyline properties set:
X: -getX()
Y: -getY()
10. Right-click the polyline and choose Grouping | Create a group from the context
menu. A new group is created; it contains the polyline trail.
11. In the Dynamic page of the group properties set Rotation to: getRotation() and
enter the following code in the On draw field in the same page:
trail.setPoint( trail.getNPoints()-1, getX(), getY() );
12. Move the group to the coordinate origin in the editor of Person.
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Trail of the agent is implemented as a polyline in a group in the agent animation
We need the trail of the agent to be fixed in the space where the agents move. The
polyline, however, belongs to the presentation of the agent, therefore it will move with
the agent. To compensate the movement, we set the coordinates of the polyline
opposite to the coordinates of the agent. Similarly, we need to compensate the
rotation of the agent. This is done by adding the polyline to a group and rotating the
group in the direction opposite to the agent. Finally, we need to continuously extend
the last segment of the trail to the current position of the agent. Therefore, whenever
the group with the polyline is drawn, we set the coordinates of the last point of trail to
the current position of the agent.
Set the initial shape of the trail and add a new segment on each arrival
13. In the Startup code field of the General page of the Person properties, enter the
following code before the auto-generated call of moveTo:
//leave two points in the polyline
trail.setNPoints( 2 );
//place both at the current agent position
trail.setPoint( 0, getX(), getY() );
trail.setPoint( 1, getX(), getY() );
//the call of moveTo generated by the wizard follows
14. In the Agent page of the Person properties, enter the following code in the On
arrival field before the auto-generated call of moveTo:
int n = trail.getNPoints();
trail.setPoint( n-1, getX(), getY() ); //set the last point to the current position
trail.setNPoints( n+1 ); //add a new point
trail.setPoint( n, getX(), getY() ); //place it at the same position for now
//the call of moveTo generated by the wizard follows
15. Run the model. The three agents are leaving their trails as they move. You can
apply the virtual time mode for a short time to let the agents move long
distances.
Group:
On draw: trail.setPoint( trail.getNPoints()-1, getX(), getY() );
Rotation: -getRotation()
Polyline:
Name: trail
X: -getX()
Y: -getY()
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The three agents leave their trails
When the model starts, the trail should have two points (one segment): the start point
at the initial position of the agent and the end point that will move as the agent moves,
initially at the same place. Upon arrival, we need to close the current segment of the
trail and start a new one. This is done in the On arrival code.
Finally, we will add a text displaying the distance traveled by the agent.
Add text displaying the distance traveled
16. Open the editor of Person. Open the Presentation palette, drag the Text object,
and drop it nearby the person shape.
17. In the Dynamic page of the text properties type trail.length() in the Text field.
18. Right-click the text shape and choose Grouping | Add to existing group from the
context menu. Click on the highlighted group, which you have previously
placed at the coordinate origin.
19. Run the model.
The length of the trail equals the distance traveled by the agent, so we can simply use
the method length() of the polyline. By adding the text shape to the group, we prevent
the text from rotating with the agent.
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? The length of the trail implemented that way is unlimited, and after a long period of
simulation the picture may become less informative and may slow down the
animation. How would you modify the model so that the trail will contain the
maximum 50 most recent segments? How would you keep the information on the
distance traveled correct?
Continuous space API
The following methods, defined in the class AgentContinuous, are common for agents
living in 2D, 3D, and GIS continuous spaces:
double distanceTo( Agent other ) calculates the distance from this agent to
another agent.
AgentContinuous getNearestAgent( java.lang.Iterable<? extends AgentContinuous> agents
) returns the nearest agent from the given collection.
double getRotation() returns the current rotation angle (in radians) of the agent
in XY plane.
double getTargetX() returns the X coordinate of the target location when
moving, otherwise the current X coordinate of the agent.
double getTargetY() returns the Y coordinate of the target location when
moving, otherwise the current Y coordinate of the agent..
double getVelocity() returns the velocity of the agent regardless of whether the
agent is moving or not.
double getX() returns the current (up-to-date) X coordinate of the agent.
double getY() returns the current (up-to-date) Y coordinate of the agent.
boolean isMoving() tests whether the agent is currently moving.
void moveToNearestAgent( java.lang.Iterable<? extends AgentContinuous> agents )
starts movement towards the nearest agent from the given collection.
void setVelocity( double v ) changes the velocity of the agent (in 2D and 3D space
the velocity is measured in pixels per model time unit, and in GIS-based
environments in m/s).
void stop() stops movement.
double timeToArrival() returns the time to arrival to the target location if the
agent is moving or 0.
The following functions are specific to 2D space; they are defined in the class
AgentContinuous2D:
double distanceTo( double x, double y ) calculates the distance from this agent to a
given point.
void jumpTo( double x, double y ) instantly places the agent at a given location.
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void moveTo( double x, double y ) starts movement towards the given target
location.
void moveTo( double x, double y, Path2D path ) starts movement towards the given
target location along a given path (polyline or line).
void setXY( double x, double y ) sets the coordinates of the agent location; should
be used for initial setup only; assumes the agent is not moving.
These are the functions of AgentContinuous3D specific to 3D space:
double distanceTo( double x, double y, double z ) calculates the distance from this
agent to a given point.
double getTargetZ() returns the Z coordinate of the target location when
moving, otherwise the current Z coordinate.
double getVerticalRotation() returns the current vertical rotation angle of the
agent.
double getZ() returns the current (up-to-date) Z coordinate of the agent.
void jumpTo( double x, double y, double z ) instantly places the agent into a given
location.
void moveTo( double x, double y, double z ) starts movement towards the given
target location.
void moveTo(double x, double y, double z, Path3D path ) starts movement towards
the given target location along a given path.
void setXYZ( double x, double y, double z ) sets the coordinates of the agent
location.
Networks and links
In many (but not all) agent based models, agents have relationships with each other. If
agents are people, the relationships may be friendship, kinship, sexual relationships,
relationships at work, or physical contacts. If agents are IT infrastructure objects, they
may be physical or wireless links. In a supply chain model, they may be producer-
consumer relationships, and so on.
AnyLogic offers several ways to model agent relationships. They are:
Standard and user-defined networks with uniform bidirectional links
(friendship, common interest, information exchange)
Custom unidirectional links with possibly different meanings (child-parent,
boss-subordinate, client-salesman, workstation-server, producer-consumer)
Hierarchical model architectures (company-employee, town-habitant, group-
member)
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Using ports to connect agents
Do not think of links and networks as things that are set up once and are not able to
change. As the model is running, you can modify the relationships between the
existing objects, add new objects and establish their connections, delete objects,
restore the standard network types, and so on.
Standard networks
AnyLogic supports several standard types of networks and you are able to modify
them and create your own networks. The standard networks are based on uniform bi-
directional connections between agents. The standard network types are (see the
Figure):
Random. An agent is connected (on average) to a given number of randomly
selected other agents.
Distance-based. Two agents are connected if the distance between them is
within a given range. This network type applies only to agents in continuous
space.
Ring lattice. Regardless of the space and layout type, the agents are considered
to be evenly distributed on a virtual ring. An agent is connected to a given
number of agents closest to it on the ring.
Small world. Same virtual ring is assumed. An agent is connected to a given
number of agents, most of which are its closest neighbors, but a certain
percentage of connections are long-distant. This network is constructed from a
pure ring lattice by re-wiring some connections to long-distant. Examples of
small world networks are social networks or Internet connectivity network. An
interesting property of a small world network is that the number of hops
between two randomly chosen agents is proportional to the logarithm of the
number of agents, which means even strangers are linked via mutual
acquaintances [Wikipedia].
Scale free. Formally, this is a network where the distribution of number of
agents connections follows a power law, i.e., the fraction of agents with k
connections is k
-
, being the network parameter. In such networks, some
agents are hubs with a lot of connections, and some are hermits with few
connections. Some real world networks are claimed to be scale-free, such as
professional collaboration networks, computer networks, or airline networks
[Wikipedia].
A good visual demonstration of the standard network types is available in the example
model Agent Network and Layout Demo included in the AnyLogic How-to example set.
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Standard and custom network types
Ring lattice with 4 links per agent.
10 agents on a ring layout
Random network with 3 links per agent.
50 agents on a ring layout
Distance-based network, range 50.
100 agents on a random layout
Small world network with 3 links per
agent, 75% of neighborhood links.
50 agents on a ring layout
Scale free network with m = 4.
50 agents on a ring layout
Custom network (50 initial agents
small world, spring mass layout,
200 more agents linked to them)
These guys
are hubs
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In AnyLogic, networks are constructed with the help of the Environment object and can
connect agents of different types (different classes), given they are members of the
same environment.
To create a network:
1. Select the Environment object and open the Advanced page of its properties.
Select the network type and specify the parameters of the network.
This has the following effect. The agents that are created at the model startup get
connected according to the given network parameters. If you add more agents later
on, or delete existing agents, the network will not automatically reconfigure itself
unless you call the function applyNetwork() of the Environment object.
Example: Periodic repair of a standard network
In this example, we will create a population of agents in a rectangular 2D space and
connect them based on inter-agent distances. We will let the agents die, be born, and
move, and will set up a periodical repair of the network. We will also show how to
visualize links between the agents.
Create agents connected with a distance-based network:
1. Create a new model. Drag the Agent population object from the General palette
to the editor of Main.
2. On the first page of the wizard, leave the default settings. On the second page,
set the space size to 500 by 400 and set the Network type to Distance based with
parameter 50.
3. Run the model. The agents are randomly distributed across the area and they
are connected, but we do not see the links yet.
Visualize the links between agents:
4. Open the editor of Person (this is the default agent class name given by the
wizard). Drag a Line object from the Presentation palette and place the
beginning of the line to the coordinate origin.
5. Open the Dynamic page of the line properties and type:
Replication: getConnectionsNumber()
Rotation: -getRotation()
dX: getConnectedAgent( index ).getX() - getX()
dY: getConnectedAgent( index ).getY() - getY()
6. Run the model. Now you can see the links and make sure the connections are
distance-based.
This works as follows. The number of line copies is set to the number of connections
the agent has. The beginning of each line is at the coordinate origin (at the center of
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the agent). The end of the line is placed at the center of the connected agent by setting
dX and dY to the differences of coordinates of this and the other agent. The rotation of
the line is set to compensate the rotation of the agent, which moves with the right-
hand side in front.
As the standard connections are bidirectional, for each connection, there will be not
one, but two lines displayed one on top of the other, which is fine for our simple
example. Should you need to display only one line, you can set the color of the line to
null if getIndex() or hashCode() of the other agent is greater than getIndex() of this agent.
Make the agents move:
7. Open the editor of Person and write this statement in the Startup code:
moveTo( uniform(500), uniform(400) );
8. Open the Agent page of the Person properties and write exactly the same code
in the On arrival field. This will make the agents constantly move in the space.
9. Run the model. See how the agents move and how the links, after a while,
cease to reflect the distances between the agents.
Make the agents die and be born:
10. Open the editor of Person and add an Event object from the General palette.
Name the event death, leave the Timeout trigger type and set the Mode to User
control. Set the timeout value to uniform( 60, 100 ). In the event Action write:
get_Main().remove_persons( this );. This event will not be scheduled unless we
explicitly do it.
11. In the Startup code of Person, add the line: death.restart();. This will schedule the
death of the agent within 60-100 time units from its birth.
We could not use a Timeout event with the mode Occurs once because then the
occurrence time is absolute (counted from the model startup), and the agents born
later than time 100 will never die.
12. Run the model. Wait for all agents to die.
13. Open the editor of Main and add an Event object with the name birth. Set the
Trigger type to Rate with rate value 1. The action of the event should be
add_persons();. Now, on average, every time unit a new agent will be born.
14. Run the model.
After a while the number of agents stabilized at about 80 (do you know why, by the
way?), but there are no links between them because no one is taking care of
connecting the new born agents. The last bit of the model is the periodic repair of the
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distance-based network. We can implement this as yet another periodic event at the
Main level.
Setup the periodic repair of the network:
15. Add another event in Main object with the name repairNetwork. Make it a Cyclic
Timeout with Recurrence time 5. The Action of the event will be:
environment.applyNetwork();. This will rewire the agent connections according
to the network type specified in the environment object (the network type can
also be changed dynamically if needed).
16. Run the model. See how the network is repaired every 5 time units.

Distance-based network with periodic repair
The initial layout and network
at time = 0
The network at time = 4.9
just before repair
The network at time = 5.1
just after repair
The network at time = 4620.08
just after repair

Too long
link
Missing
link
Link deleted
Link created
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Example: Custom network built using standard connections
We will first create a standard network of 20 agents connected in a ring, and then add
60 more agents and connect 3 new agents to each initial agent. We will then apply a
spring-mass layout to better visualize our network.
Create 20 agents connected in a ring:
1. Create a new model. Drag the Agent population object from the General palette
to the editor of Main.
2. On the first page of the wizard, set the Initial population size to 20. On the
second page, set the Network type to Ring lattice. Click Finish.
3. Select the environment object in the editor of Main and set the Layout type to Ring
on the Advanced page of its properties.
4. Repeat steps 4-6 of the previous model, Periodic Repair of a standard
network, to visualize the links.
5. Run the model. The agents are evenly distributed on a ring and linked (by
default, there are two connections per agent; you can change this in the
properties of the environment).

A simple ring lattice the backbone of the future custom network
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Dynamically create 100 additional agents and link them to the existing agents:
6. Add this Startup code in the Main object:
for( int i=0; i<20; i++ ) { //iterate across the initial 20 agents
Person hub = persons.get(i); //for each initial agent (a "hub")
for( int j=0; j<3; j++ ) { //create 3 more agents
Person sub = add_persons();
sub.connectTo( hub ); //and link to the hub
}
}
7. Run the model. The new agents are randomly spread across the area and
linked to the initial 20 agents.
8. Add two more lines at the end of the Startup code of Main (note that after you
have set the new layout type you need to call the function applyLayout() to
actually relocate the agents):
//change the layout type
environment.setLayoutType( Environment.LAYOUT_SPRING_MASS );
//and apply the new layout
environment.applyLayout();
9. Run the model and see the new spring mass layout.
The key function used in this example is the agents function connectTo(), which creates
a new bidirectional connection between this and another agent. The standard
networks are built of connections of the same type.

The custom network before and after applying the spring mass layout
60 randomly located agents were
added and linked to the initial 20
The Spring Mass layout was applied
to the new network
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Fully connected networks
It does not make a lot of sense to use connections to establish a fully connected
network (one where everybody is connected to everybody else). Building and
maintaining such a network may require significant computer resources, whereas you
can easily use AnyLogic agent, environment, or replicated object API to iterate
through the collection of agents, or to access a particular or a random agent.
For example, if all of the agents of the class Person are elements of a single replicated
object (like people embedded in Main class), to access the set of agents from inside one
of them, you can use the function:
ActiveObjectList< Person> getReplicatedList() returns the list you can iterate
through, access a particular agent by index by calling its get(i) function, query
statistics, or pick a random agent by calling random().
If the set of agents consists of several subsets (for instance, you have two types of
agents or two replicated objects), but all of them live in the same environment, you can
use the API of the Environment object. From inside an agent you can call:
getEnvironment().getAgentCollection() returns the collection of all agents in the
environment, again, with possibilities of iteration and access by index.
getEnvironment().getRandomAgent() returns a randomly chosen agent in the
environment.
When other agents are accessed via the environment, the returned class will be one of
the generic classes, like AgentContinuous2D, so you may need to cast (convert) it to the
actual class to access its specific properties. Please also note that all those functions
may return the calling agent, so this may need to be checked.
Network and layout-related API
The following methods are defined in the class Agent, and thus are common for all
types of agents:
LinkedList<Agent> getConnections() returns the list of all connected agents, or null
if there have been no connections established.
int getConnectionsNumber() returns the number of connected agents.
Agent getConnectedAgent( int index ) returns the connected agent with the given
index. Note that the method returns the generic type Agent and you may need to
cast it to a specific type.
connectTo( Agent a ) adds a given agent to the connections of this agent and vice
versa.
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boolean isConnectedTo( Agent a ) tests if this agent is connected to a given agent.
boolean disconnectFrom( Agent a ) disconnects this agent from a given other
agent, returns false if the agents were not connected.
disconnectFromAll() disconnects the agent from all other agents.
In addition, the Environment class offers this API:
applyNetwork() discards all existing connections and establishes new
connection network according to the current network settings.
getNetworkType() returns the network type, one of: NETWORK_ALL_IN_RANGE,
NETWORK_RANDOM, NETWORK_RING_LATTICE, NETWORK_SCALE_FREE,
NETWORK_SMALL_WORLD, NETWORK_USER_DEFINED; remember that, as long as the
constants are defined in the class Environment, you should include the prefix
Environment. when you use them.
setNetworkRandom( double connectionsPerAgent ) sets the network type to
NETWORK_RANDOM with a given average number of connections per agent.
setNetworkRingLattice( int connectionsPerAgent ) sets the network type to
NETWORK_RING_LATTICE lattice.
setNetworkScaleFree( int m ) sets the network type to NETWORK_SCALE_FREE.
setNetworkSmallWorld( int connectionsPerAgent, double neighborLinkProbability ) sets
the network type to NETWORK_SMALL_WORLD.
setNetworkUserDefined() sets the network type to NETWORK_USER_DEFINED.
The 2D-specific class Environment2D additionally has these functions:
int getLayoutType() returns the current layout type, one of LAYOUT_ARRANGED,
LAYOUT_RANDOM, LAYOUT_RING, LAYOUT_SPRING_MASS, LAYOUT_USER_DEFINED.
Again, the prefix Environment. is needed when you use these constants.
setLayoutType( int type ) sets the layout type.
applyLayout() relocates the agents according to the selected layout type.
Unidirectional, temporary, and other custom types of links
Uniform bidirectional connections are not always the desired way of modeling the
relationships of real world objects. For example, I may listen to somebodys opinion,
but that person does not necessarily know me, thus our relation is asymmetric. In
many cases, connections must have specific names so that we can distinguish between
them, like Husband, Wife, Kids, Colleagues, Friends, Boss, and so on. The links Wife
and Husband are naturally unidirectional, while the link Spouse is bidirectional.
In AnyLogic you can establish and maintain all kinds of connections using references
to agents stored in plain variables or collections. This can be considered as an
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alternative or as an addition to the standard networking service provided by the
Environment object with the functions getConnections(), connectTo(), etc. Consider the
Figure. Here kinship between individuals is modeled by custom links. All kinds of
kinship are implemented as pairs of unidirectional links, either symmetric (like
Spouse) or asymmetric (like Father and Kid).

Custom links used to model kinship relations
Spouse
Kids
Mother Father
Spouse
Kids
Mother Father
Spouse
Kids
Mother Father
Spouse
Kids
Mother Father
Spouse
Kids
Mother Father
Spouse
Kids
Mother Father
Spouse
Kids
Mother Father
Spouse
Kids
Mother Father
Spouse
Kids
Mother Father
Spouse
Kids
Mother Father
Spouse
Kids
Mother Father
A reference (a unidirectional link) to a another agent, may be empty (null)
A collection of references, may contain 0, 1, or multiple elements
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Custom links are a very flexible mechanism for creating specific networks, but the
modeler who uses them becomes responsible for maintaining the network
consistency. For example, when an agent dies or is otherwise deleted from the model,
all references to that agent should be cleared throughout the model.
Example: Kinship modeled using custom links
We will create a fairly simple agent based population model where people (males and
females) are born, grow up, marry, have kids, get old, and die. We will maintain the
kinship relations, as shown in the Figure, by means of custom links (references) to
other agents. We will also take care of the kinship network consistency.
Create the initial population of 300 people and create custom links:
1. Create a new model and use the Agent population wizard to create 300 agents.
Set the name of the population to people.
2. Open the editor of Person and replace the default animation with the circle of 2
pixel radius located at the coordinate origin. Name the circle circle.
3. In the Person class, create a Boolean parameter male with the initial value
randomTrue( 0.5 ). The birth probability for males and females will be the same.
4. From the General palette, drag the Variable and name it mother. Set the type of
the variable to Person. This will be the reference (link) to the persons mother.
Agents in the initial population will not have live parents, and this variable
will be null.
5. Copy the variable to create two more links: father and spouse.
6. Drag the Collection object and name it kids. Set the element type of the
collection to person. This will be a collection of references to the persons
children, initially empty.
7. Open the Agent page of the Person properties and deselect the checkbox
Environment defines initial location (parents will take care of the initial location of
their kids).
8. On the same page set the Velocity of the agent to 100. We will use movement
to visualize the family formation.
9. Draw two lines with the start points at the coordinate origin of the Person and
dynamic properties, as shown in the Figure. These lines will visualize the
kinship relations of the person. Note that we are only visualizing the relation
wife and kid, and we do not draw the lines for husband and father/mother to
avoid duplication.
10. Run the model to make sure the 300 people are in place and there are no links
between them so far.
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Links to the agents in kinship and their visualization
Add persons behavior:
11. Draw the statechart, as shown in the Figure.
12. Specify the triggers and actions of the transitions as explained below.
13. Run the model.
As you can see, the person may reach the Adult state at any age between 16 and 25.
Then, for another 15-25 years the person may create a family and have kids. Then he
or she becomes a Senior and dies after yet another 15-25 years.
Transition LookForWife and its branches Found and NoLuck. The transition has a Guard
that is set to male, which means that only a male person can execute it. The transition
is triggered at the Rate of 1, i.e., on average once a year. The Action of the transition is:
//look for wife on average once a year
for( Person p : get_Main().people ) { //search all people
if( ! p.male && p.statechart.isStateActive( NoFamily ) ) {
//if a person is female and not married, marry her
spouse = p;
Boolean parameter, initially: randomTrue( 0.5 ).
Variables of type Person links to other agents
Collection with element type Person
Visualization of my wife relation
Visualization of my kid relation
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send( this, p ); //and let her know
break; //exit the loop
}
}
If a single adult male finds a single adult female, he marries her, which is implemented
by setting the males spouse link and sending the wife the message containing a
reference to the male himself (this). The condition of the branch Found is spouse !=
null, otherwise the branch NoLuck takes the male back to the NoFamily state.
The transition GetMarried has a Guard set to ! male so that it applies to females only. It
is triggered by a message of type Person (remember that, when getting married, a male
sends a reference to himself to the chosen wife). The Action of the transition is:
spouse = msg; //remember husband and move to him
moveTo( spouse.getX() + 10, spouse.getY() );
This means the wife sets up the reference to the husband and moves to his location.

The statechart of a person. Other transitions are explained in the main text
The transition NewKid is an internal transition inside the state Family. It is guarded by
the expression ! male && spouse != null, so that only females with live husbands can have
Entry action:
circle.setFillColor( yellowGreen );
Entry action:
circle.setFillColor( male ? blue : red );
Entry action:
circle.setFillColor(goldenRod );
Triggered by:
Timeout: uniform( 16, 25 )
Triggered by:
Timeout: uniform( 15, 25 )
Triggered by:
Timeout: uniform( 15, 25 )
Males
only
Females
only
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new kids. The transition is taken at the Rate of 0.1, i.e., on average once every 10 years.
The action is:
//a kid is born on average every 10 years
Person kid = get_Main().add_people(); //new person
kids.add( kid ); //add to my kids
spouse.kids.add( kid ); //add to husband's kids
kid.mother = this; //assign mother to the kid
kid.father = spouse; //assign father
//place the kid nearby the father
kid.jumpTo( spouse.getX() + uniform( -10, 10 ), spouse.getY() + uniform( -10, 10 ) );
A newborn needs some wiring to be done. We establish the cross-links between the
kid and his parents, and place the kid near his father.
And finally, the state Dead. Here we delete the person from the model, but, before
he/she disappears, we must clean all references to the person to maintain the
network consistency. The action of the state Dead is:
//clean up all links to myself
//from kids
for( Person kid : kids ) {
if( male )
kid.father = null;
else
kid.mother = null;
}
//from spouse
if( spouse != null)
spouse.spouse = null;
//from parents
if( father != null )
father.kids.remove( this );
if( mother != null )
mother.kids.remove( this );
//and die
get_Main().remove_people( this );
Note that, before addressing a spouse or parent, we need to check if the other person
is alive.
The model shows interesting behavior, see the Figure.
? What can be changed in the model to ensure the population growth (give options)?
? In the current model, brothers and sisters can possibly marry. How would you modify
the model to prevent this?
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Behavior of the Kinship model
Time = 0. Initially all 300 people are newborn
30 years later. Kids have grown up and formed
families. Some already have kids
Year 55. Second generation is forming families at
this time, moving out of their parents homes Year 75. The first generation is mostly gone
Year 400. The population is again 300 people Year 500. This people are not going to survive
A family
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A note on vertical links in hierarchical models
Note that if the model is hierarchical, for example, the agent of type Department
contains agents of type Employee, and is itself embedded into the agent of type
Company, you do not have to establish special "vertical" links: AnyLogic active object
hierarchy naturally provides them: an employee can always access his department by
calling get_Department(), and the company can address any of its departments by index,
e.g., departments.get(i). Also see the section Where am I and how do I get to ?
Using ports to connect agents
Sometimes you want to manually lay out the agents on the canvas and connect them at
design time. This may make sense if the number of agents is not too large, and their
relationships are stable and known in advance. In such cases, AnyLogic ports may
serve as connection points.
Consider a model of a supply chain. Each element in the chain (a producer, a
distribution center, a retailer) is an agent with two ports, see the Figure. The incoming
orders and outgoing shipments are received and sent by the right-hand side port.
Correspondingly, the outgoing orders and incoming shipments are sent and received
by the left-hand side port. Shipments and orders are AnyLogic messages, i.e., arbitrary
Java objects.

A model of a supply chain. Fixed layout, agents are connected via ports
Orders
Shipments
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If a port is connected to multiple other ports, you may need to include the destination
object into the message and perform filtering at the receiving end so that the message
gets handled only by the intended recipient.
AnyLogic ports can be connected and disconnected dynamically if needed. This leaves
some flexibility to such structures.
Communication between agents. Message passing
You can consider an AnyLogic model as an open space where everybody can see
and talk to everybody else.
You can access any construct in any active object, from any other construct in any
other active object (or agent), no matter how distant they are in the model hierarchy.
The syntax of expressions allowing you to move up and down the model hierarchy and
penetrate inside agents is explained in the section Where am I and how do I get to?
in the chapter Java for AnyLogic users. Using those rules an agent can:
Directly call functions of other agents
Read and modify variables and parameters of other agents
In addition, AnyLogic supports a communication mechanism specific to agent based
modeling: message passing. An agent can send a message to an individual agent or a
group of agents. A message can be an object of any type and complexity, for example, a
text string, an integer, a reference to an object, or a structure with multiple fields.
Synchronous and asynchronous communication
The fundamental difference between message passing and inter-agent function calls is
that the first one is asynchronous communication, whereas the second one is
synchronous. Consider the Figure. The agent a send the message Message to the
agent b by calling the function send() somewhere in the middle of event 1. The message
is delivered to b, but execution of the reaction to the message is postponed until event
1 finishes and is performed in a new event 2, scheduled immediately after event 1.
Compare this to the function call. When a calls the function() of b, the execution of
function() starts immediately in the middle of the event 1, the execution of agent a code
is suspended and resumes only when function() returns control there. The same
scheme applies when you use special functions deliver() and receive() as shown at the
bottom of the Figure.
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Unless you intentionally want to use synchronous communication, we recommend
using asynchronous message passing because it leads to a cleaner ordering of
events, which is better for understanding and easier for debugging. Direct function
calls can cause complex chains and loops (for example, imagine what would happen if,
in the middle of execution of the function(), the agent b calls another function of agent
a), and this is not the kind of complexity a simulation modeler should spend time on.

Message passing and function calls between agents
API for message passing
AnyLogic offers the following API for sending messages. These functions are available
in the Agent class:
send( Object msg, Agent dest ) sends the message to a given agent.
Agent b Agent a
send( Message, b );
Event 1
Reaction to
the message
Event 2
b.function()
Event 1
function()
execution
0 time
0 time
Event 1 0 time
Reaction to
the message
deliver( Message, b )
Asynchronous message passing
Synchronous function call
Synchronous message passing
(special case)
or b.receive( Message )
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send( Object msg, int mode ) sends the message to a single or a group of
recipients, subject to the mode parameter.
deliver( Object msg, Agent dest ) immediately delivers the message to a given
agent and executes the recipients reaction.
deliver( Object msg, int mode ) immediately delivers the message to a single or a
group of recipients (subject to mode) and executes their reactions.
receive( Object msg ) immediately delivers the message to this agent and
executes its reaction (this function is typically called by other agents).
The mode parameter is explained in the Figure. ALL means all agents in the
environment (not just agents of same type). ALL_CONNECTED delivers message to all
agents connected to this one via standard connections. RANDOM_... chooses a random
agent from a given set; the sender itself may be chosen.

Different modes of message passing
ALL ALL_CONNECTED
RANDOM RANDOM_CONNECTED
ALL_NEIGHBORS
(Moore neighborhood)
RANDOM_NEIGHBORS
(Moore neighborhood)
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You can also ask the environment to do the message passing by calling these
functions:
deliverToAll( Object msg ) immediately delivers a message to all agents in the
environment.
deliverToRandom( Object msg ) immediately delivers a message to a randomly
chosen agent.
These functions are typically used when a message is sent not from one agent to
another, but from some construct at the container level (e.g., from an event at Main) to
an agent.
Message handling
An agent has a special code field On message received where you can define its reaction
to the incoming messages, see the Figure. In addition, all messages received by the
agent are optionally forwarded to the statecharts inside the agent and can trigger
transitions. Statecharts allow you to visually specify how the agents reaction on a
particular message depends on its internal state, and they are used more frequently
than the On message received code.

Message routing and handling inside an agent
Agent
The incoming message is handled by whatever
rules are written in the On message received field
And then may optionally be
forwarded to the agents
statechart(s)
The message (of type Object)
The sender (or null)
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Other types of inter-agent communication
As you know, agents can access variables and parameters of other agents. We,
however, strongly encourage you limit this access to read-only type to keep interface
between agents clean and thin. For example, it is absolutely fine to check if the other
agent has certain properties:
if( otheragent.male and otheragent.income > 100000 )
But be careful with modifying variables of other agents. If you choose to do so, and
write something like this:
otheragent.income += 20000;
the income of otheragent will indeed grow, but it will not notice it immediately (and
react) unless you explicitly call otheragent.onChange();.
Dynamic creation and destruction of agents
Agents and, in general, active objects in AnyLogic can be dynamically created and
destroyed. The only object that has to be present in the beginning of the simulation,
and cannot be deleted at runtime, is the root object, like Main. Creation and deletion
of active objects is done using a replicated object construct a collection of active
objects of the same type. At runtime you can add more objects to the replicated object
or delete existing objects.

Using replicated object construct to dynamically create and destroy agents
Main
people[..]
Person Person Person

add_people()
remove_people( p )
+
get_Main().remove_people( this )

get_Main().remove_people( p )
get_Main().add_people()
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If you need to create only one instance of an active object dynamically, you still need
to use a replicated object with the initial number of objects set to 0.
If you plan to add or delete objects type Person within the object Main, you need to:
1. Drag the icon of Person from the Projects tree to the editor of Main. This embeds
an instance of Person into Main.
2. Select the Replicated checkbox in the properties of embedded object. Give the
embedded replicated object a meaningful name, like people.
3. Specify the initial number of objects, possibly 0.
After you do it, AnyLogic prepares several useful functions for you. They are:
The function add_people() of Main. This function creates a new object of type
Person, places it into the collection people, and returns the newly created active
object.
The function remove_people( Person object ), also in Main. This function deletes a
given instance in the collection people.
The function get_Main() in the class Person returning the container of this
instance of Person if it is embedded into Main. This function is actually
generated for all classes whose instances are embedded in Main, be they
replicated or not.
The replicated object provides API common for any Java collection, in particular:
int people.size() returns the number of active objects (or agents) in the
collection.
Person people.get( int index ) returns the element of the collection (the active
object or agent) with the given index.
Person people.random() returns a randomly selected element.
To delete itself from the model, a Person object needs to:
1. Call get_Main().remove_people( this );. The meaning of this code is: go one level
up to access the container object of type Main, then call the function
remove_people() available in Main and provide itself (this) as a parameter.
Correspondingly, to create another person a Person object needs to:
1. Call get_Main().add_people() or Person newborn = get_Main().add_people() if you
need to remember the newly created person to do, for example, its additional
setup.
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There is a way to specify the parameters of the active object directly at the time of its
creation. Assume the Person has two parameters: male of type Boolean and income of
type double. Then an additional form of the function add_people() is generated:
add_people( boolean male, double income )
This creates a new object with the given parameters.
Statistics on agent populations
The easiest way of collecting statistics in agent based models in AnyLogic is to use the
standard statistics of the replicated object. You can count the number of agents
satisfying a certain condition (for example, being in a particular state), calculate the
average of a certain numeric property across the agent population (for example,
average income), and calculate minimum, maximum, and total (sum).
You can also create dynamic histograms displaying the distribution of a value
throughout the population, such as age or income distribution.
In addition, as long as every internal element of every agent is accessible at the global
(Main) level, you can collect highly customized statistics of arbitrary complexity. In
this section we give some examples.
Example: Kinship model with standard statistics
We will take the Kinship model introduced earlier in this chapter and add several
statistics, namely:
Number of juniors, male adults, female adults, and seniors, and
Average number of kids in a family
We will display the statistics using time stack charts and time plots.
Create statistics items in the replicated object:
1. Open the Kinship model described earlier. Open the editor of Main and select
the replicated object people (the population of agents).
2. Open the Statistics page of the people properties and click Add statistics. A new
statistics item is created.
3. Name the new statistics nJunior (n will mean number of). Leave the default
type of the statistics (Count) and specify the condition:
item.statechart.isStateActive( item.Junior )
When this statistics is calculated, AnyLogic will iterate across the agent
population, evaluate the condition for each agent, and return the number of
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times the condition evaluated to true. The item represents the current agent
(person).
Note that the name Junior was defined within the Person class, therefore we need to
provide the prefix item. (or Person.) because we are now writing a piece of code on
the territory of the Main object.
4. Create three more statistics items:
nFemaleAdults that counts people with condition
item.statechart.isStateActive( item.Adult ) && ! item.male
(this is a condition on both the current statechart state and a parameter),
similar item nMaleAdults with condition
item.statechart.isStateActive( item.Adult ) && item.male
and nSenior with condition
item.statechart.isStateActive( item.Senior )
5. Finally, create the fifth statistics item with name aveKids (average number of
kids). Change the type of this statistic to Average and specify:
Expression: item.kids.size()
Condition: ! item.statechart.isStateActive( item.Junior ) && ! item.male
This statistics will calculate the average value of the expression across those
agents who satisfy the condition, namely for adult and senior females only.
We have created five statistics items, and AnyLogic has generated five functions in the
replicated object people. Now we can write (while in Main):
people.nJunior() to obtain the current number of juniors (integer value).
people.nFemaleAdults() to obtain the current number of female adults.
people.nMaleAdults() to obtain the current number of male adults.
people.nSenior() to obtain the current number of senior people.
people.aveKids() to obtain the average number of kids per non-junior female (a
real value).
So far, nobody is calling these functions and statistics are not collected. We will now
add a couple of charts and let them periodically update themselves by calling the
statistics.
Add charts displaying the statistics:
6. While still in the editor of Main, add the Time stack chart object from the Analysis
palette.
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7. In the properties of the chart, add a new data item with default type Value,
title Junior, and value people.nJunior(). Set the color of this item to yellowGreen to
match the color of junior agents.
8. Similarly, add three other items: Female adults, Male adults, and Senior.
Look at the bottom part of the chart properties. The chart is set to update itself each 1
time unit (each year in our model), to keep 100 last data items, and to display the 100
years time window. This means the statistics functions will be called by the chart each
year.
9. Add a Bar chart with the data item Ave no of kids and value people.aveKids(). This
chart will also update itself each model year.
10. Run the model and watch the charts.
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Standard statistics in the Kinship model
Example: Kinship model with dynamic histograms
We will now further develop the statistics collection in the Kinship model. The
statistics we have collected and displayed so far are useful, but we want to know more
things about the population, for example, the age distribution or the distribution of the
number of kids per family. The best way of answering such questions is to maintain
and display dynamic histograms reflecting the current distribution of a given value.
To be able to display the age distribution, we will need to slightly modify the model of
Person. In the initial implementation, the exact age of a person is actually lost: we only
know the current age group (junior, adult, senior), and the time remaining before the
person leaves the group (the remaining time of a timeout transition). We will now add
a variable birthdate and the function age().
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Add explicit age information to Person:
1. Open the Kinship model (you can take the version with the standard
statistics), and open the editor of Person. Drag a Variable object from the General
palette, name the variable birthdate, leave the default type (double), and set the
initial value to time(). Now, when a new person is created, the birthdate is set to
the current model time.
2. Add a function age(), returning type double, with the code return time() -
birthdate;. This function will return the current age of the person.
Create periodically updated distributions
3. Open the editor of Main and add a Histogram data object from the Analysis
palette. Name the item ageDistribution, set the Number of intervals to 20, set the
Values range to 0-75, and select the option Do not update data automatically.
4. Create a copy of the histogram with the name kidsDistribution and the same
properties except for the Values range, which should be 0-10.
5. Create an event updateDistributions (the Event object can be found in the
General palette) and set its mode to Cyclic Timeout with Recurrence time 1. In the
Action of the event write:
//clear previous data
ageDistribution.reset();
kidsDistribution.reset();
//update histograms
for( Person p : people ) { //for all agents in the population
ageDistribution.add( p.age() ); //add persons age to age distribution
if( !p.statechart.isStateActive( p.Junior ) && !p.male ) //female non-junior only
kidsDistribution.add( p.kids.size() ); //add no of kids to kids distribution
}
Display the distributions using Histogram objects:
6. Add a Histogram chart from the Analysis palette, click Add histogram data in its
properties, specify title Age distribution, and write ageDistribution in the
Histogram field.
7. Add another histogram chart with the title No of kids distribution displaying
the kidsDistribution correspondingly.
8. Run the model. Now the statistics are much more informative, see the Figure.
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Dynamic histograms in the Kinship model
Customized high performance statistics
As you can see, the standard statistics collection involves iteration across the entire
population of agents each time the value is updated. This may be computationally
inefficient, especially when the population is large. If the simulation performance
becomes an issue, you may consider replacing the standard statistics with customized
high performance statistics. The general idea is to use the knowledge of the model to
update the statistics only when relevant changes occur.
For example, if you are interested in the number of infected people in an epidemic
model, you can maintain an integer counted at the top (Main) level and let the agents-
Year 14 Year 30 Year 65
No kids yet
The 1
st

generation
(all of the
same age)
2
nd
generation
3
rd
generation
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patients increment it each time a patient gets infected and decrement when the
patient recovers. In a population model, where you are interested in average income
per capita, you can add a variable holding the total income of the entire population
and change it each time an individual persons income grows or falls. Then, to obtain
the average income, you only need to divide the total income by the population size.
Example: Kinship model with customized statistics
We will refactor the Kinship model with standard statistics by replacing the statistical
items of the replicated object with plain variables directly updated by the agents.
Remove all standard statistics items and create auxiliary variables:
1. Open the previously created model, select the people object in the editor of
Main, and delete all items on the Statistics page.
2. In Main, add four variables of type int: nJunior, nFemaleAdults, nMaleAdults,
nSenior. These will be the counters.
3. Add two more variables of type int: totalKids and nFemaleNonJunior. These two
variables will help us to obtain the average number of kids per family.
4. In the time stack chart, change the expression people.nJunior() to simply nJunior,
people.nFemaleAdults() to nFemaleAdults, etc.
5. In the bar chart, change the expression people.aveKids() to (double)totalKids /
nFemaleNonJunior. (We have to explicitly convert one of the operands to the
type double to avoid integer division.)
Program updates of the statistical variables:
6. Open the editor of Person. Select the statechart state Junior and add this code
line to the Entry action: get_Main().nJunior++; and write get_Main().nJunior--; in the
Exit action.
7. Similarly, in the Entry action of the state Adult add:
if( male ) {
get_Main().nMaleAdults++;
} else {
get_Main().nFemaleAdults++;
get_Main().nFemaleNonJunior++;
}
and in the Exit action, correspondingly:
if( male )
get_Main().nMaleAdults--;
else
get_Main().nFemaleAdults--;
8. In the Entry action of the state Senior, add this line:
get_Main.nSenior++.
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and in the Exit action type:
get_Main().nSenior--;
if( !male )
get_Main().nFemaleNonJunior--;
9. Select the transition NewKid and add this line to its Entry action:
get_Main().totalKids++;.
10. And finally, modify the Action of the Dead state this way:
//clean up all links to me
//from kids
for( Person kid : kids ) {
if( male ) {
kid.father = null;
} else {
kid.mother = null;
//update stats (mother dies first)
get_Main().totalKids--;
}
}
//from spouse
if( spouse != null)
spouse.spouse = null;
//from parents
if( father != null )
father.kids.remove( this );
if( mother != null ) {
mother.kids.remove( this );
//update stats (child dies first)
get_Main().totalKids--;
}
//and die
get_Main().remove_people( this );
11. Run the model. Switch to the Virtual time mode and watch how fast the
simulation is after the changes that we made.
As you can see, the simulation performance comes at the cost of writing some code,
which may not be trivial. In this particular example, the most challenging part is to
maintain an up-to-date total number of kids. As long as we originally decided to count
children of adult and senior females, we have to take care of decrementing the total
number of kids when either the mother dies before her kids, or a child dies before his
or her mother. Otherwise, the code is pretty straightforward.
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Condition-triggered events and transitions in agents
AnyLogic allows you to specify events and transitions triggered by a condition
Boolean expressions defined over the agents local and possible external variables.
Such events or transitions should occur once the associated condition becomes true. It
makes sense to discuss the AnyLogic implementation of these constructs.
We distinguish between the two cases:
The model contains dynamic variables and equations (for example, the
model includes system dynamics components). Then the numeric solver is
involved and the implicit (and typically small) time steps are present in the
model. If this is the case, all conditions of events and transitions are tested on
every numeric time step, and the moment when a condition becomes true will be
discovered at least with the time step accuracy.
The model does not contain dynamic variables and equations. Then the
numeric solver is not working during the simulation, and there are no implicit
time steps in the model. The conditions the agents events and transitions wait
on are then tested only when something happens in the agent (e.g., an internal
event or statechart state change), and also when the agents function onChange()
is explicitly called.
Therefore, it makes a lot of sense to explicitly notify the agent that is waiting on a
condition each time an external change occurs that may affect the condition. For
example, if the agent-consumer waits for the product price to fall below a certain
threshold, the agent-retailer may call the function onChange() of all consumers in the
beginning of a sale. The model constructed this way will be computationally very
efficient.
However, the model structure and behavior does not always allow it to be done in a
simple way, and then the modeler can introduce artificial time steps by, for example,
adding a cyclic event at the Main object and calling onChange() of all agents in the action
of that event.