Simulation for Agent-Oriented Software Engineering

The complexity of agents, their environment, and the interaction between agents and environment suggest that experimental testing represents a major research effort in the area of multi-agent systems. However, the development of methods and tools supporting systematic experiments with agents has not found the expected attention. For testing agents, developers often resort to handcrafted solutions developed from scratch. The proposed Grand Challenge is aimed at developing modeling and simulation methods based on theoretical foundations that allow a systematic and comfortable testing of multi-agent systems and to firmly rooting simulation within the emerging area of agentoriented software engineering. The endeavor provides plentifully technological and interdisciplinary challenges.