The RETSINA MAS, a Case Study
Abstract
In this paper we identify challenges that confront the large-scale multi-agent system (LMAS) designer, and claim that these challenges can be successfully addressed by agent-based software engineering (ABSE), which we consider to be distinct from object-oriented software engineering for multi-agent systems (OOSE for MAS) in its consideration of agent "goal", "role", "context" and "attitude" as first class objects. We show how we have discovered these principles through our experiences in developing the RETSINA multi-agent system, in implementing specific test applications, and in the derivation of three distinct architectures that help guide and describe the designs of our systems: the "individual agent" architecture, the "functional" architecture, and the "infrastructure" architecture.
BibTeX
@workshop{Sycara-2002-8698,author = {Katia Sycara and Joseph Andrew Giampapa and Brent K. Langley and Massimo Paolucci},
title = {The RETSINA MAS, a Case Study},
booktitle = {Proceedings of International Workshop on Software Engineering for Large-Scale Multi-agent Systems (SELMAS '02)},
year = {2002},
month = {May},
editor = {Alessandro Garcia, Carlos Lucena, Franco Zambonelli, Andrea Omici, Jaelson Castro},
pages = {232 - 250},
publisher = {Springer-Verlag},
address = {Berlin Heidelberg},
keywords = {multi-agent system, scalability, case study, agent, RETSINA, architecture},
}