message/uml 2

Most recent software engineering methodologies are designed for an object-
oriented approach.Engineering of commercial MAS requires the availability of agent
oriented software engineering(AOSE)methodologies.Most MAS systems will be
implemented with object and component based technology in the near future unless a
widely accepted agent programming language emerges.In this case,viewed at a
detailed level,an agent is a relatively complex object or component.However,this is
like considering that a house is a pile of bricks,but it is more convenient to view a
house in terms of higher level concepts such as living room,kitchen and bedroom.
When an agent is viewed at a more abstract level,structures come into focus that are
not found in conventional objects or components.Agent-orientation is thus a
paradigm for analysis,design and system organisation.An agent-oriented modelling
language must provide primitives for describing these higher-level structures,the
inspiration for which derives from cognitive psychology and social modelling via
artificial intelligence.
MESSAGE1[5](Methodology for Engineering Systems of Software Agents)is
an AOSE methodology which builds upon current software engineering best practices
covering analysis and design of MAS which is appropriate for use in mainstream
software engineering departments.It has well defined concepts and a notation that is
based on UML whenever appropriate.
1.2 Comparison to Other Approaches
Work toward an AOSE methodology can be divided into two broad categories.The
first category aims to apply existing software engineering methodologies to AOSE.
AgentUML(AUML)[9]for example defines extensions to UML with notations
suited for agent concepts.AUML has extended UML’s interaction diagrams to handle
agent interaction protocols.Although this notation is useful and has been adopted
within MESSAGE,it does not have the concept of agent at its centre,i.e.specifying
an object’s behaviour in terms of interaction protocols does not make it an agent.
The second category of work aims at developing a methodology from agent theory,
mainly covering analysis and design.Typically these methodologies define a number
of models for both analysis and design[8]such as Gaia[6]and MAS-CommonKads
[7].The Gaia methodology has two analysis models and three design models.While
the analysis models are based on well-defined concepts,these only represent a subset
of the concepts required for agent oriented analysis.The design models are not clearly
explained and the authors envisage OO methods being used for detailed design.Mas-
Common-Kads has six models for analysis,and three for design.While these models
are comprehensive,the method lacks a unifying semantic framework and notation.In
addition to this work,goal analysis techniques have been shown to be very useful[4,
10].The techniques range from informal to formal analysis and cover functional and
non-functional goal analysis.MESSAGE combines the best features of the above
approaches.
1
MESSAGE was a two year collaborative project funded by EURESCOM.EURESCOM is a
research organization owned by European telecommunications companies,
http://www.eurescom.de/.