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Model Driven Design of Multiagent Systems
Klaus Fischer, Stefan Warwas, and Ingo Zinnikus
German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) GmbH
Saarbrcken, Germany
{
Klaus.Fischer,Stefan.Warwas,Ingo.Zinnikus
}
@dfki.de
Abstract.
In general software engineering modelling of software sys-
tems had a significant impact on the manner in which complex systems
are designed. The Model Driven Architecture (MDA) proposed by the
Object Management Group (OMG) provides a formal framework that
allows to define dedicated modelling languages for different application
domains. Already in the model driven design of service-oriented archi-
tectures one can identify concepts that are common in the design of such
systems and what agent-based systems concerns. To directly use the
MDA framework for the design of multiagent system (MAS) is therefore
an obvious step. In this article we advocate the domain specific modelling
language DSML4MAS for modelling MAS. However, our aim is not to
just define the language, we propose a framework for DSML4MAS that
allows its adaptation and dynamic development in the future. Our vision
is that in the near future model repositories for model fragments that can
be flexibly combined will be established and propose basic concepts that
can support the development of MAS in this context. The interaction
aspect is especially important in MAS design and one of the most obvi-
ous aspects where model exchange and model re-use is highly desirable.
The article therefore presents the interaction aspect in more details and
discusses the features that are available in the DSML4MAS.
1 Motivation
With the success of service-oriented architectures and the ever-growing connec-
tivity of applications in the Internet, agent technologies are becoming even more
attractive than they were in the past. However, many times the system design
not only in agent-oriented applications is tightly bound to the execution envi-
ronment. Although we are far from a state where system engineers would not
care about the technologies deployed in the execution environment, it is clear
that it would be highly desirable to be able to separate system design from such
technologies and with this make it more sustainable regarding the evolution of
software concepts. The model driven architecture proposed by the Object Man-
agement Group (OMG
1
) provides the basic ideas that can significantly improve
the possibilities to maintain system designs while new technologies emerge or
