Specifying Laws in Open Multi-Agent Systems

Laws have been used to deal with theoretical and practical issues regarding notions of openness and unpredictably of open multiagent systems. In order to achieve a higher degree of predictability and confidence, practical applications of distributed agents need to describe the interaction structure of the system, and this interaction structure must be regulated. Governing agent interactions can lead to higher degree of system trust. This paper uses the notion of interaction laws as abstraction to regulate agents’ interaction. In this paper, we introduce a conceptual model for developing laws in open multi-agent systems. This model is composed of static, dynamic and formal definitions. We also depict a declarative language used for supporting the conceptual model. Moreover, we show a software implementation that allows the enforcement of laws through the interception of agents’ interaction. Finally, the conceptual model is applied in a case study in the domain of flight ticket trading.