Our goal in this paper is to introduce and motivate a methodology, called Tropos, for building agent oriented software systems. Tropos is based on two key ideas. First, the notion of agent and all related mentalistic notions (for instance goals and plans) are used in all phases of software development, from early analysis down to the actual implementation. Second, Tropos covers also the very early phases of requirements analysis, thus allowing for a deeper understanding of the environment where the software must operate, and of the kind of interactions that should occur between software and human agents. The methodology is illustrated with the help of a case study. The Tropos language for conceptual modeling is formalized in a metamodel described with a set of UML class diagrams.

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.

Gaining wide acceptance for the use of agents in industry requires both relating it to the nearestantecU3O1 teccU3O1 (objec t-oriented software development) and usingartifac2 to support the development environment throughout the full systemlifec34I1 We address both of these requirements in this paper by desc51U"3 some of the mostcstU2 requirements for modeling agents and agent-based systems---using a set of UML idioms and extensions. This paper illustrates theapproac by presenting a three-layer AUML representation for agent interacOU" protocO andcdUO6521 byinc14O4U other useful agent-based extensions to UML.

Software and knowledge... In this article, we argue that intelligent agents and agent-based systems offer novel opportunities for developing effective tools and techniques. Following a discussion on the classic subject of what makes software complex, we introduce intelligent agents as software structures capable of making "rational decisions". Such rational decision-makers are well-suited to the construction of certain types of software, which mainstream software engineering has had little success with. We then go on to examine a number of prototype techniques proposed for engineering agent systems, including formal specification and verification methods for agent systems, and techniques for implementing agent specifications

Information systems of the future will have to perform well within ever-changing organizational environments. Unfortunately, existing software development methodologies (object-oriented, structured or otherwise) have traditionally been inspired by programming concepts, not organizational ones, leading to a semantic gap between the software system and its operational environment. To reduce this gap, we propose a software development methodology named Tropos which is founded on concepts used to model early requirements. Our proposal adopts the i* organizational modeling framework, which o#ers the notions of actor, goal and (actor) dependency, and uses these as a foundation to model early and late requirements, architectural and detailed design. The paper outlines Tropos phases through an e-business example, and sketches a formal language which underlies the methodology and is intended to support formal analysis. The methodology seems to complement well proposals for agent-oriented programming platforms.

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

In the past, research on agent-oriented software engineering had been widely lacking touch with the world of industrial software development. Recently, a cooperation has been established between the Foundation of Intelligent Physical Agents (FIPA) and the Object Management Group (OMG) aiming to increase acceptance of agent technology in industry by relating to de facto standards (object-oriented software development) and supporting the development environment throuDoRHk44Duu4DuDuwDu As a first resuDW of this cooperation, we proposed AGENT UML [Bau er, 1999; Odell 2000], an extension of the Unified Modeling langung (UML), a de facto standard for object-oriented analysis and design. In this paper, we describe the heart of AGENT UML, i.e., mechanisms to model protocols for muWfkFUDo interaction.Particuio UML extensions described in this paper incluD protocol diagrams, agent roles, mus,DHUvk4Do lifelines, extended UML message semantics, nested and interleaved protocols, and protocol templates.

This paper presents the Prometheus methodology for developing intelligent agent systems. The methodology has been developed over the last several years in collaboration with Agent Oriented Software. Our goal was to develop a design process with associated deliverables which can be taught to industry practitioners and undergraduate students who do not have a background in agents and which they can use to develop intelligent agent systems. Our claim is that Prometheus is developed in sufficient detail to be used by a non-expert. Our evidence is, at this stage, still anecdotal; however, the indications are that Prometheus is usable by non-experts and that they find it useful

To gain wider acceptance for the use of agents in industry, it is a necessity to relate it to the nearest antecedent technology (object-oriented software development) and to introduce appropriate artifacts to support the development environment throughout the full system life cycle. We address both of these requirements by presenting agent UML, the Agent UML (Unified Modeling Language) — a set of UML idioms and extensions. This paper provides an agent UML representation of the internal behavior of an agent; it then relates this internal description to the external behavior of the agent by using and extending UML class diagrams and by describing agent interaction protocols in a new way. Our claim is that by extending the de-facto standard representation for object-oriented modeling to agents, the learning curve for object-oriented developers to adopt aspects of agent-based programming becomes much less steep. Thus, agentoriented programming as a whole will become more amenable to mainstream software engineering.

This paper describes the Multiagent Systems Engineering (MaSE) methodology. MaSE is a general purpose, methodology for developing heterogeneous multiagent systems. MaSE uses a number of graphically based models to describe system goals, behaviors, agent types, and agent communication interfaces. MaSE also provides a way to specify architecture-independent detailed definition of the internal agent design. An example of applying the MaSE methodology is also presented.