Engineering Multi-Agent Systems

Abstract

The continuous integration of software-intensive systems together with the ever-increasing computing power offer a breeding ground for intelligent agents and multi-agent systems (MAS) more than ever before. Over the past two decades, a wide variety of languages, models, techniques and methodologies have been proposed to engineer agents and MAS. Despite this substantial body of knowledge and expertise, the systematic engineering of large-scale and open MAS still poses many challenges. Researchers and engineers still face fundamental questions regarding theories, architectures, languages, processes, and platforms for designing, implementing, running, maintaining, and evolving MAS. This paper reports on the results of the 6th International Workshop on Engineering Multi-Agent Systems (EMAS 2018, 14th-15th of July, 2018, Stockholm, Sweden), where participants discussed the issues above focusing on the state of affairs and the road ahead for researchers and engineers in this area.

An Agent-based Cyber-Physical Production System using Lego Technology

“…Multi-agent systems are broadly researched and developed for providing modularization of the dynamic systems, decentralization for distributed systems [18], autonomy for production, and re-usability for further development of physical systems [19]. However, before realising such complex operations, agent integration has to be provided [20]. Once agents are implemented into CPS, their control over embedded functions should also be ensured.…”

AgentDSM-Eval: A framework for the evaluation of domain-specific modeling languages for multi-agent systems

“…MAS are recognized as both useful abstraction and effective technologies for modeling and building autonomous, complex, and distributed systems in various industrial fields, e.g., industrial automation, real-time adaptive resource management, large-scale network and service management, integrating quality and process control in production lines, fast deployment of evolvable systems and predictive analysis for business management (Leitao and Karnouskos, 2015;Liang et al, 2019). However, the development of software required for constructing MAS usually becomes challenging and time-consuming due to the properties autonomy, distributedness, and openness of these systems, in addition to the complicated nature of internal agent behaviors and agent interactions (Challenger et al, 2016a;Mascardi et al, 2019).…”