Roadmap

2001

The metaphors of autonomous agents and agent societies have t h e p o t e n tial to make a signi cant impact on the processes of analysis, design, and development of complex software systems on the Internet. In this chapter, we concentrate predominantly on agent societies, and show h o w w ork on coordination models and technologies provides a p o werful framework for the engineering of Internet-based, multi-agent systems. First, we introduce the concepts of agent, multi-agent system, and agent-oriented software engineering, and highlight the speci c issues that arise when we take the Internet as the environment t h a t a g e n ts inhabit. We t h e n p r o vide a brief survey of the state of the art in the area of agent-oriented methodologies, paying particular attention to the Gaia methodology for agent-oriented analysis and design. Gaia was originally conceived for benevolent agents inhabiting closed systems. However, to broaden its scope, we s h o w how insights from the area of coordination models can be incorporated in order to make it more suitable for developing Internet-based applications. Published as Chapter 13 in the Book: Coordination of Internet Agents: Models, Technologies and Applications, A . O m i c i n i , F . Z a m bonelli, M. Klusch, R. Tolksdorf (Eds.), Springer, 2000.

… Agents and Multi-Agent …, 2010

Holonic multiagent systems (hmas) offer a promising software engineering approach for developing complex open software systems. However the process of building Multi-Agent Systems (mas) and hmas is mostly different from the process of building more traditional software systems as it introduces new design and development challenges. This paper introduces an agent-oriented software process for engineering complex systems called aspecs. aspecs is based on a holonic organisational metamodel and provides a step-by-step guide from requirements to code allowing the modelling of a system at different levels of details using a set of refinement methods. This paper details the entire aspecs development process and provides a set of methodological guidelines for each process activity. A complete case study is also used to illustrate the design process and the associated notations. aspecs uses uml as a modelling language. Because of the specific needs of agents and holonic organisational design, the uml semantics and notation are used as reference points, but they have been extended by introducing new specific profiles.

Autonomous Agents and Multi-agent Systems, 2001

Overview SRI's Open Agent Architecture (OAA), a research framework for constructing agent-based systems, makes it possible for software services to be provided through the cooperative efforts of distributed collections of autonomous agents. Communication and cooperation between agents are brokered by one or more facilitators, which are responsible for matching requests, from users and agents, with descriptions of the capabilities of other agents. Thus, it is not generally required that a requester (user or agent) know the identities, locations, or number of other agents involved in satisfying a request. Facilitators are not viewed as centralized controllers, however, but rather as coordinators, as they draw upon knowledge and advice from several different, potentially distributed, sources to guide their delegation choices.

Applied Artificial Intelligence, 1999

The Open Agent Architecture OAA, developed and used for several years at SRI International, makes it possible for software services to be provided through the cooperative e orts of distributed collections of autonomous agents. Communication and cooperation between agents are brokered by one or more facilitators, which are responsible for matching requests, from users and agents, with descriptions of the capabilities of other agents. Thus, it is not generally required that a user or agent know the identities, locations, or number of other agents involved in satisfying a request. OAA is structured so as to minimize the e ort involved in creating new agents and wrapping" legacy applications, written in various languages and operating on various platforms; to encourage the reuse of existing agents; and to allow for dynamism and exibility i n the makeup of agent communities. Distinguishing features of OAA as compared with related work include extreme exibility in using facilitator-based delegation of complex goals, triggers, and data management requests; agent-based provision of multimodal user interfaces; and built-in support for including the user as a privileged member of the agent community. This paper explains the structure and elements of agent-based systems constructed using OAA. The characteristics and use of each major component o f O AA infrastructure are described, including the agent library, the Interagent Communication Language, capabilities declarations, service requests, facilitation, management of data repositories, and autonomous monitoring using triggers. To provide technical context, we describe the motivations for OAA's design, and situate its features within the realm of alternative software paradigms. A summary is given of OAA-based systems built to date, and brief descriptions are given of several of these.

2000

Holonic multiagent systems (HMAS) offer a promising software en- gineering approach for developing complex open software systems. However the process of building Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) and HMAS is mostly different from the process of building more traditional software systems as it introduces new design and development challenges. This paper introduces an agent-oriented soft- ware process for engineering complex systems called

This paper introduces the Rio methodology, which relies on the notions of Role, Interaction and Organization. We define a model of runnable specification of interaction protocols that represents interactions between agents globally, and that can be processed in order to generate Colored Petri Nets that handle agent conversations. Moreover, these specifications are not tied to a particular agent model and could therefore be used to enable multi-agent systems interoperability. The Rio methodology aimed at the design of open multi-agent systems, and is based on an engineering of these runnable interaction protocols. They are described in term of conversation between micro-roles characterized by their skills, then micro-roles are gathered in composite roles. These composite roles are used to build abstract agents. Lastly, these latter can be distributed among the agents of a running multi-agent system.

2003

This paper introduces the Rio methodology, which relies on the notions of Role, Interaction and Organization. We define a model of runnable specification of interaction protocols that represents interactions between agents globally, and that can be processed in order to generate Colored Petri Nets that handle agent conversations. Moreover, these specifications are not tied to a particular agent model and could therefore be used to enable multi-agent systems interoperability. The Rio methodology aimed at the design of open multi-agent systems, and is based on an engineering of these runnable interaction protocols. They are described in term of conversation between micro-roles characterized by their skills, then micro-roles are gathered in composite roles. These composite roles are used to build abstract agents. Lastly, these latter can be distributed among the agents of a running multi-agent system.

Whitestein Series in Software Agent Technologies and Autonomic Computing, 2008

Software Agents, 1997