Effective planning and scheduling in multi-agent systems (MAS) requires the development of representations that can model their unique problem-solving requirements. This paper analyzes both the macro-behavior (behavior of a MAS w.r.t. system goals) and the micro-behavior (behavior of individual agents w.r.t. to local goals) of MAS. The Sensible Agent architecture provides a representation of th...

Although Multi Agent Systems (MAS) have attracted a great deal of attention in the field of software engineering, with their promise of capturing complex systems, they remain far away from commercial popularity mainly due to the accessibility of MAS methodologies for commercial developers. In this paper we present a practical method for developing self-managing MAS that we believe enables not o...

As multi-agent systems (MAS) are used increasingly often to solve larger and more complex problems, distributed simulation is emerging as the only viable approach to cope with the resultant increased scale and complexity of MAS. While different methods have been proposed for distributing these simulations, the problem of interfacing a MAS with these distributed methods remains just as important...

During the last years graphical tools have been developed for constructing Multi-Agent-Systems (MAS) [15, 1, 2]. We provide additional concepts for simplifying the visual construction of MAS, namely the AgentComponent approach [13] and the Run-Design-Time concept [12]. The AgentComponent approach combines agent technology and component technology and adds component features like reusability and...

Assembly systems today are exposed to market trends that have become increasingly more dynamic and unpredictable, requiring product changes and adjustments which emphasise de need for more flexible systems. The requirement for increased responsiveness has led to the development of new modular concepts which provide the bases for achieving higher system adaptability through increased component/m...

Game engines are gaining increasing popularity in various computational research areas, and in particular in the context of multi-agent systems (MAS)—for instance, to render augmented reality environments, improve immersive simulation infrastructures, and so on. Existing examples of successful integration between game engines and MAS still focus on specific technology-level goals, rather than o...

Multi-agent systems (MAS) present an effective approach to the efficient development of modular systems composed of interacting agents. Several frameworks exist that aid the development of MAS, but they are often not very appropriate for some kind of uses, such as for Multi-Agent-based Simulation (MABS). Other frameworks exist for running simulations, sharing little with the former. While open ...

The utilization of self-organizing processes promises scalability, robustness and adaptivity in Multi-Agent Systems (MAS), solely based on decentralized coordination of individual actors. Bionic development approaches are being established, which reuse decentralized coordination mechanisms that are derived from natural self–organizing systems. In this paper, we address analysis activities in in...

In recent years, Agent-Oriented Software Engineering (AOSE) methodologies are proposed to develop complex distributed systems based upon the agent paradigm. The implementation for such systems has usually the form of Multi-Agent Systems (MAS). Testing of MAS is a challenging task because these systems are often programmed to be autonomous and deliberative, and they operate in an open world, whi...

Coordination Artifacts are first-class software entities that encapsulate an abstract communication pattern either among Agents or between an Agent and its environment. By separating Coordination Artifacts from Agents in a Multi-Agent System (MAS), both implementations are simplified: Coordination Artifacts become an ideal means for dealing with systemic issues, while the remaining Agent code c...