Agent-Oriented Software Engineering: The State of the Art

First NTNU CSGSC, 2001

Agent-Oriented Software Engineering is the one of the most recent contributions to the field of Software Engineering. It has several benefits compared to existing development approaches, in particular the ability to let agents represent high-level abstractions of active entities in a software system. This paper gives an overview of recent research and industrial applications of both general high-level methodologies and on more specific design methodologies for industry-strength software engineering.

2004

Agent-Oriented Software Engineering is the one of the most recent contributions to the field of Software Engineering. It has several benefits compared to existing development approaches, in particular the ability to let agents represent high-level abstractions of active entities in a software system. This paper gives an overview of recent research and industrial applications of both general high-level methodologies and on more specific design methodologies for industry-strength software engineering.

Agent-Oriented Software Engineering is the one of the most recent contributions to the field of Software Engineering. It has several benefits compared to existing development approaches, in particular the ability to let agents represent high-level abstractions of active entities in a software system. This paper gives an overview of recent research and industrial applications of both general high-level methodologies and on more specific design methodologies for industry-strength software engineering.

Enabling Society with Information Technology, 2002

Agent-oriented approach to software engineering (Agent-SE) for multiagent software design is presented. It includes methods to generate organizational information for cooperative and coordinative agents. Agent-SE can be used to design and implement complex, heterogeneous, distributed and networked software systems using dynamic agent coalition structure.

International Journal of Modelling and Simulation, 2010

Agent-oriented software engineering (AOSE) is motivated by the need to develop software applications that perform in increasingly complex, distributed, open, dynamic and unpredictable environments. Two major fields of research that contribute to achievements towards AOSE are the software engineering and the agent-based computing fields. Even though there is no concrete relation between these two fields in the past years, research communities from software engineering and agent-based computing interact seeking an appropriate methodology and modelling technique for incorporating software agents into the software development process. This article classifies and evaluates the main approaches towards AOSE methodologies and modelling techniques. It aims to clarify different assumptions and attitudes concerning the modelling of agent-based systems and further establish a set of criteria for researchers and practitioners to evaluate existing and ongoing efforts.

2011

Abstract: The notion of agent more and more appears in different contexts of computer science, often with different meanings. The main acceptation is the AI (Artificial Intelligence) and Distributed AI one, where agents are essentially exploited as a technique to develop special-purpose systems exhibiting some kind of intelligent behavior. In this paper, we introduce a further perspective, shifting the focus from AI to computer programming and programming languages.

Multiagent Systems, Artificial Societies, and Simulated Organizations, 2004

This chapter presents a selection of current research works on agent technology which are focused on the development of Multi-Agent Systems. The purpose of this chapter is to guide developers through existing theories, methods, and software that can be applied in each stage of a development. However, this guide is not exhaustive due the amount of agent-related research works. Thus authors have added references to consult other information sources and complement the information given here. Readers are encouraged to consult these external references in order to obtain a more accurate view of the field.

Iet Software/iee Proceedings - Software, 1997

Agent-based computing represents an exciting new synthesis both for Artificial Intelligence (AI) and, more generally, Computer Science. It has the potential to significantly improve the theory and the practice of modeling, designing, and implementing computer systems. Yet, to date, there has been little systematic analysis of what makes the agent-based approach such an appealing and powerful computational model. Moreover, even less effort has been devoted to discussing the inherent disadvantages that stem from adopting an agent-oriented view. Here both sets of issues are explored. The standpoint of this analysis is the role of agent-based software in solving complex, real-world problems. In particular, it will be argued that the development of robust and scalable software systems requires autonomous agents that can complete their objectives while situated in a dynamic and uncertain environment, that can engage in rich, high-level social interactions, and that can operate within flexible organisational structures. : S 0 0 0 4 -3 7 0 2 ( 9 9 ) 0 0 1 0 7 -1

Iastedse, 2004

There are, at least, three reasons why software architecture is important: a) communication among stakeholders, b) early design decisions, and c) transferable abstraction of a system. The IEEE Recommended Practice for Architectural Description of Software-Intensive Systems introduces and integrates stakeholders, concerns, viewpoints, views, and architectural models facilitating the expression, communication, evaluation, and comparison of architectures in a consistent manner. However, the standard does not specify a delivery format for architectural description. In addition, it is difficult to know if an architecture is within the principles of design imposed by a specific concern. A similar effort, to describe software architectures is the creation and improvement of special-purpose languages, known as architecture description languages (ADLs). However, ADLs have the disadvantage of not providing adequate support for separating several kinds of concerns across different viewpoints. In order to alleviate these issues, our paper proposes an enhancement to the conceptual model introduced in the standard. Our enhanced model, improves two of the reasons mentioned: a) communication among stakeholders and b) early design decisions.

2000

This article presents informal and formal specifications of some basic concepts (terms) and properties of agent theory, the design and imperative and recursive implementations of intelligent agents and supports agent approach in computer science.