Publication
Agent-oriented software engineering: a model-driven approach
Klaus Fischer; Christian Hahn; Cristián Madrigal Mora
In: International Journal of Agent-Oriented Software Engineering (IJAOSE), Vol. 1, No. 3/4, Pages 334-369, Inderscience, 2007.
Abstract
A recent trend in Agent Oriented Software Engineering (AOSE) is to adopt a model-driven approach for designing Multiagent Systems (MAS). OMG’s Model-Driven Architecture (MDA) initiative provides standards (i.e. techniques to define metamodels and model transformations) useful for a model-driven software engineering process. Bringing MDA and AOSE together, we propose that building interoperable agents for the various existing agent methodologies requires the definition of two things: (i) a core metamodel unifying the basic agent-oriented concepts, and (ii) its complementing framework supporting the design, development, and execution of agent systems in a model-driven manner. In this paper, we present a step towards the definition of this framework.
For this purpose, we take a given platform independent model for Service Oriented Architectures (PIM4SOA) and discuss how service models that are designed in accordance to the PIM4SOA can be deployed in agent platforms using principles of model-driven development (MDD). Taking the role of platform-specific execution environments, we develop the metamodels of JACK and JADE and relate them to the PIM4SOA by defining model transformations. Beside bringing MDA and AOSE together, we additionally provide a foundation for how to incorporate autonomous agents into architectures designed according to different paradigms, like, for example, SOA.