51 research outputs found
Méthodes orientées agent et multi-agent
http://www.emse.fr/~picard/publications/bernon09industrie.pdfNational audienceLes systÚmes multi-agents (SMA) ont montré leur pertinence pour la conception d'applications distribuées (logiquement ou physiquement), complexes et robustes. Le concept d'agent est aujourd'hui plus qu'une technologie efficace, il représente un nouveau paradigme pour le développement de logiciels dans lesquels l'agent est un logiciel autonome qui a un objectif, évolue dans un environnement et interagit avec d'autres agents au moyen de langages et de protocoles (voir le chapitre 1 " Introduction aux systÚmes multi-agents "). Souvent, l'agent est considéré comme un objet " intelligent " ou comme un niveau d'abstraction au-dessus des objets et des composants (voir le chapitre 5 " Composants logiciels et systÚmes multi-agents "). Les méthodes de développement orientées objet - au vu des différences entre les objets et les agents - ne sont pas directement applicables au développement de SMA. Il est alors devenu nécessaire d'étendre ou de développer de nouveaux modÚles, de nouvelles méthodologies et de nouveaux outils adaptés au concept d'agent
Logic-Based Specification Languages for Intelligent Software Agents
The research field of Agent-Oriented Software Engineering (AOSE) aims to find
abstractions, languages, methodologies and toolkits for modeling, verifying,
validating and prototyping complex applications conceptualized as Multiagent
Systems (MASs). A very lively research sub-field studies how formal methods can
be used for AOSE. This paper presents a detailed survey of six logic-based
executable agent specification languages that have been chosen for their
potential to be integrated in our ARPEGGIO project, an open framework for
specifying and prototyping a MAS. The six languages are ConGoLog, Agent-0, the
IMPACT agent programming language, DyLog, Concurrent METATEM and Ehhf. For each
executable language, the logic foundations are described and an example of use
is shown. A comparison of the six languages and a survey of similar approaches
complete the paper, together with considerations of the advantages of using
logic-based languages in MAS modeling and prototyping.Comment: 67 pages, 1 table, 1 figure. Accepted for publication by the Journal
"Theory and Practice of Logic Programming", volume 4, Maurice Bruynooghe
Editor-in-Chie
A platform-independent domain-specific modeling language for multiagent systems
Associated with the increasing acceptance of agent-based computing as a novel software engineering paradigm, recently a lot of research addresses the development of suitable techniques to support the agent-oriented software development. The state-of-the-art in agent-based software development is to (i) design the agent systems basing on an agent-based methodology and (ii) take the resulting design artifact as a base to manually implement the agent system using existing agent-oriented programming languages or general purpose languages like Java. Apart from failures made when manually transform an abstract specification into a concrete implementation, the gap between design and implementation may also result in the divergence of design and implementation. The framework discussed in this dissertation presents a platform-independent domain-specific modeling language for MASs called Dsml4MAS that allows modeling agent systems in a platform-independent and graphical manner. Apart from the abstract design, Dsml4MAS also allows to automatically (i) check the generated design artifacts against a formal semantic specification to guarantee the well-formedness of the design and (ii) translate the abstract specification into a concrete implementation. Taking both together, Dsml4MAS ensures that for any well-formed design, an associated implementation will be generated closing the gap between design and code.Aufgrund wachsender Akzeptanz von Agentensystemen zur Behandlung komplexer Problemstellungen wird der Schwerpunkt auf dem Gebiet der agentenorientierten Softwareentwicklung vor allem auf die Erforschung von geeignetem Entwicklungswerkzeugen gesetzt. Stand der Forschung ist es dabei das Agentendesign mittels einer Agentenmethodologie zu spezifizieren und die resultierenden Artefakte als Grundlage zur manuellen Programmierung zu verwenden. Fehler, die bei dieser manuellen ĂberfĂŒhrung entstehen, machen insbesondere das abstrakte Design weniger nĂŒtzlich in Hinsicht auf die Nachhaltigkeit der entwickelten Softwareapplikation. Das in dieser Dissertation diskutierte Rahmenwerk erörtert eine plattformunabhĂ€ngige domĂ€nenspezifische Modellierungssprache fĂŒr Multiagentensysteme namens Dsml4MAS. Dsml4MAS erlaubt es Agentensysteme auf eine plattformunabhĂ€ngige und graphische Art und Weise darzustellen. Die Modellierungssprache umfasst (i) eine abstrakte Syntax, die das Vokabular der Sprache definiert, (ii) eine konkrete Syntax, die die graphische Darstellung spezifiziert sowie (iii) eine formale Semantik, die dem Vokabular eine prĂ€zise Bedeutung gibt. Dsml4MAS ist Bestandteil einer (semi-automatischen) Methodologie, die es (i) erlaubt die abstrakte Spezifikation schrittweise bis hin zur konkreten Implementierung zu konkretisieren und (ii) die InteroperabilitĂ€t zu alternativen Softwareparadigmen wie z.B. Dienstorientierte Architekturen zu gewĂ€hrleisten
A systematic approach for detecting faults in agent designs
This thesis proposes a mechanism, including automated tool support, for early-phase defect detection by comparing the plan structures of a belief-desire-intention (BDI) agent design against the following: (1) requirement models, specified in terms of scenarios and goals; and (2) agent communication models. The intuition of our approach is to extract sets of possible behaviour runs from the agent-behaviour models and to verify whether these runs conform to the specifications of the system-to-be. The proposed approach in this thesis is applicable at design time and does not require source code. Our approach is based on the Prometheus agent-design methodology but is applicable to other methodologies that support the same notions. We evaluate the proposed verification framework on designs, ranging from student projects to case studies of industry-level projects. Our evaluation demonstrates that even a simple specification developed by relatively experienced developers is prone to defects, and our approach is successful in uncovering most of these defects. In addition, we conduct a scalability analysis of our methods, and the outcomes reveal that our approach can scale when designs grow in size
RV4JaCa - Runtime Verification for Multi-Agent Systems
This paper presents a Runtime Verification (RV) approach for Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) using the JaCaMo framework. Our objective is to bring a layer of security to the MAS. This layer is capable of controlling events during the execution of the system without needing a specific implementation in the behaviour of each agent to recognise the events. MAS have been used in the context of hybrid intelligence. This use requires communication between software agents and human beings. In some cases, communication takes place via natural language dialogues. However, this kind of communication brings us to a concern related to controlling the flow of dialogue so that agents can prevent any change in the topic of discussion that could impair their reasoning. We demonstrate the implementation of a monitor that aims to control this dialogue flow in a MAS that communicates with the user through natural language to aid decision-making in hospital bed allocation
A framework for active software engineering ontology
The passive structure of ontologies results in the ineffectiveness to access and manage the knowledge captured in them. This research has developed a framework for active Software Engineering Ontology based on a multi-agent system. It assists software development teams to effectively access, manage and share software engineering knowledge as well as project information to enable effective and efficient communication and coordination among teams. The framework has been evaluated through the prototype system as proof-of-concept experiments
A Methodology for Modelling Mobile Agent-Based Systems (Mobile agent Mobility Methodology - MaMM)
Mobile agents are a particular type of agents that have all the characteristics of
an agent and also demonstrate the ability to move or migrate from one node to
another in a network environment. Mobile agents have received considerable
attention from industry and the research community in recent times due to the
fact that their special characteristic of migration help address issues such as
network overload, network latency and protocol encapsulation. Due to the current
focus in exploiting agent technology mainly in a research environment, there has
been an influx of software engineering methodologies for developing multi-agent
systems. However, little attention has been given to modelling mobile agents. For
mobile agent-based systems to become more widely accepted there is a critical
need for a methodology to be developed to address various issues related to
modelling mobility of agent . This research study provides an overview of the
current approaches, methodologies and modelling languages that can be used
for developing multi-agent systems. The overview indicates extensive research
on methodologies for modelling multi-agent systems and little on mobility in
mobile agent-based systems. An original contribution in this research known as
Mobile agent-based Mobility Methodology (MaMM) is the methodology for
modelling mobility in mobile agent-based systems using underlying principles of
Genetic Algorithms (GA) with emphasis on fitness functions and genetic
representation. Delphi study and case studies were employed in carrying out this
research
Logic-based Technologies for Multi-agent Systems: A Systematic Literature Review
Precisely when the success of artiïŹcial intelligence (AI) sub-symbolic techniques makes them be identiïŹed with the whole AI by many non-computerscientists and non-technical media, symbolic approaches are getting more and more attention as those that could make AI amenable to human understanding. Given the recurring cycles in the AI history, we expect that a revamp of technologies often tagged as âclassical AIâ â in particular, logic-based ones will take place in the next few years.
On the other hand, agents and multi-agent systems (MAS) have been at the core of the design of intelligent systems since their very beginning, and their long-term connection with logic-based technologies, which characterised their early days, might open new ways to engineer explainable intelligent systems. This is why understanding the current status of logic-based technologies for MAS is nowadays of paramount importance.
Accordingly, this paper aims at providing a comprehensive view of those technologies by making them the subject of a systematic literature review (SLR). The resulting technologies are discussed and evaluated from two different perspectives: the MAS and the logic-based ones
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