An integrated role-based approach for modeling, designing and implementing multi-agent systems

Abstract

To facilitate the development of multi-agent systems and improve the reusability, robustness and feasibility of these systems, we have developed a role-based agent development framework (RADE). In this paper, we present an integrated approach for modeling, designing and implementing multi-agent systems using RADE. We describe the design of agents and motivations within such framework. We introduce a practical approach for modeling agent’s motivation and specifying agent’s goals, where a role-agent mapping mechanism is developed based on this design. Dynamic task allocation is achieved through the creation of role instances and the mapping from role instances to agents. We also introduce the RTÆMS language based on the extension of TÆMS to model the plan tree for each goal. This representation enables the reuse of general planning/scheduling and collaboration/cooperation mechanisms developed in multi-agent system research community. We have developed an automatic agent generation interface and also implemented a simple demo system in health care domain.