This paper presents a methodology for agent-oriented analysis and design. The methodology is general, in that it is applicable to a wide range of multi-agent systems, and comprehensive, in that it deals with both the macro-level (societal) and the micro-level (agent) aspects of systems. The methodology is founded on the view of a system as a computational organisation consisting of various interacting roles. We illustrate the methodology through a case study (an agent-based business process management system).

This paper provides an overview of research and development activities in the field of autonomous agents and multi-agent systems. It aims to identify key concepts and applications, and to indicate how they relate to one-another. Some historical context to the field of agent-based computing is given, and contemporary research directions are presented. Finally, a range of open issues and future challenges are highlighted.

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Systems composed of interacting autonomous agents offer a promising software engineering approach for developing applications in complex domains. However, this multiagent system paradigm introduces a number of new abstractions and design/development issues when compared with more traditional approaches to software development. Accordingly, new analysis and design methodologies, as well as new tools, are needed to effectively engineer such systems.

Abstract. Software engineers continually strive to develop tools and techniques to manage the complexity that is inherent in software systems. In this article, we argue that intelligent agents and multi-agent systems are just such tools. We begin by reviewing what is meant by the term “agent”, and contrast agents with objects. We then go on to examine a number of prototype techniques proposed for engineering agent systems, including methodologies for agent-oriented analysis and design, formal specification and verification methods for agent systems, and techniques for implementing agent specifications. 1

The architecture of a multi-agent system can naturally be viewed as an organised society of individuals (i.e., as a computational organisation). For this reason, we believe organisational abstractions should play a central role in the analysis and design of such systems. To this end, the concepts of agent roles and role models are increasingly being used to specify and design multi-agent systems. However, this is not the full picture. In t...

Multi-agent systems... In this paper we introduce three additional organisational concepts - organisational rules, organisational structures, and organisational patterns - and discuss why we believe they are necessary for the complete specification of computational organisations. In particular, we focus on the concept of organisational rules and introduce a formalism, based on temporal logic, to specify them. This formalism is then used to drive the definition of the organisational structure and the identification of the organisational patterns. Finally, the paper sketches some guidelines for a methodology for agent-oriented systems based on our expanded set of organisational abstractions.

The metaphors of autonomous agents and agent societies havethepotential 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 howwork on coordination models and technologies provides apowerful 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 thatagents inhabit. We thenprovide 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 show how insights from the area of coordination models can be incorporated in order to make it more suitable for developing Internet-based applications.

Introduction Developers frequently confront a dilemma that may be characterized by the following: 90% of the functionality requested by our customer is available in an existing off-the-shelf application, but the missing 10% is vital to the customer. Unfortunately, we cannot customize or adapt the existing application to meet our customer's needs--we have no choice but to buid a custom solution from scratch." As a result, a relatively small change in functionality necessitates a disproportionately large amount of effort, and curtails the opportunity for software reuse. This undesirable outcome may have been avoided if the off-the-shelf application supported decentralized software evolution, which we define as the ability to evolve software independent of the original software vendor. Decentralized software evolution (hereafter abbreviated DSE) provides a means for third-party software vendors to customize existing applications for particular domains and customers. This capabili

Abstract – Object-oriented frameworks are a promising new technology to improve software quality and reduce development costs. In contemporary software development frameworks play an increasingly important role. Subject of our paper is an object-oriented ready-to-use framework for robot control systems. With the Robot Control Framework especially multitasking control systems can be developed. The framework covers robot control functionality like path planning as well as the control of peripheral devices. It supports standard control hardware such as workstations and PCs with standard operating systems. Furthermore the framework provides an interface for the development of new control software such as a numeric control. The Robot Control Framework has a layered architecture. In order to develop a control system only flexible "hot spots " have to be hooked in the framework. Examples for these flexible aspects are the cycle period of the control loop or the kind of connection to the devices. All the other general robot control components are already part of the framework. Hence they are reused. I.