This paper discusses an example of the application of a high-level modelling framework which supports both the specification and implementation of a system's conceptual design. This framework, DESIRE (framework for DEsign and Specification of Interacting REasoning components), explicitly models the knowledge, interaction, and coordination of complex tasks and reasoning capabilities in agent systems. For the application domain addressed in this paper, an operational multi-agent system which manages an electricity transportation network for a Spanish electricity utility, a comprehensible specification is presented.

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DESIRE: Modelling Multi-Agent Systems in a Compositional Formal Framework

A cooperation model based on joint intentions introduced by Jennings is formalised within the modelling framework DESIRE for compositional multi-agent systems. By formalising the model in the DESIRE framework operationalisation and reusability of the model are obtained, as DESIRE specifications are executable and easily reusable.

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Formalization of a Cooperation Model Based on Joint Intentions

Formalisation of a cooperation model based on joint intentions

This article describes a multiagent system architecture to increase the value of 24-hour-a day call center service. This system supports call centers in making appointments with clients on the basis ofknowledge ofemployees and their schedules. Relevant activities are scheduled for employees in preparation ofsuch appointments. The multiagent system architecture is based on principled design, using the compositional development method for multiagent systems DESIRE. To schedule procedures in which more than one employee is involved, each employee is represented by its own personal assistant agent, and a work manager agent coordinates the schedules of the personal assistant agents and clients through the call center. The multiagent system architecture has been applied to the banking domain, in cooperation with and partially funded by the Rabobank.

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Distributed scheduling to support a call center: A cooperative multiagent approach

In the last years, dozens of environments for modeling, testing and finally implementing multi-agent systems have been developed. Unfortunately, no standard criteria for understanding what kind of application profile a particular development environment is good for have been individuated yet, and the question 'How should I choose an existing environment which best suits the features and requirements of my application?' is still difficult to answer. This paper addresses this question, and aims at helping the multi-agent system developer to solve this problem. It provides a set of criteria for evaluating development environments, and then applies these criteria to five selected tools and multi-agent systems prototypes. Furthermore, some application-driven guidelines are described to help identifying the features of a suitable environment for developing an implementation of the given application. The features we identify can be used to find the right development framework among the frameworks we evaluate for doing the right application.

Comparing environments for developing software agents

In current engineering practice often traditional management structures and virtual organisations are combined. In addition to formal structures, informal, dynamic organisational structures emerge in which engineers are personally responsible for effective interaction. They decide when to exchange information, and with whom, when to question requirements, when to acknowledge conflicts, et cetera. In such virtual organisations, project coordination may become quite complicated. Communication and coordination in a real-life case of concurrent design in the aircraft industry has been modelled and specified within the modelling framework DESIRE, on the basis of Jennings' (1995) informal, multi-agent model of cooperative problem solving.

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F.A.T. Brazier

Papers

Modelling project coordination in a multi-agent framework