Abstract
The technology of intelligent agents and multi-agent systems shows great potential for dealing with a range of difficult software engineering problems. But if this potential is to be realised, then serious attention must be given to engineering approaches to building agent systems. This purpose of this paper is to direct attention at these issues. It considers how we might specify, implement, and verify agent systems.
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
H. Barringer, M. Fisher, D. Gabbay, G. Gough, and R. Owens. MetateM: A framework for programming in temporal logic. In REX Workshop on Stepwise Refinement of Distributed Systems: Models, Formalisms, Correctness (LNCS Volume 430), pages 94–129. Springer-Verlag: Heidelberg, Germany, June 1989.
H. Barringer, R. Kuiper, and A. Pnueli. A really abstract concurrent model and its temporal logic. In Proceedings of the Thirteenth ACM Symposium on the Principles of Programming Languages, pages 173–183, 1986.
A. H. Bond and L. Gasser, editors. Readings in Distributed Artificial Intelligence. Morgan Kaufmann Publishers: San Mateo, CA, 1988.
B. Chellas. Modal Logic: An Introduction. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, England, 1980.
E. M. Clarke and E. A. Emerson. Design and synthesis of synchronization skeletons using branching time temporal logic. In D. Kozen, editor, Logics of Programs — Proceedings 1981 (LNCS Volume 131), pages 52–71. Springer-Verlag: Heidelberg, Germany, 1981.
P. R. Cohen and H. J. Levesque. Intention is choice with commitment. Artificial Intelligence, 42:213–261, 1990.
D. C. Dennett. The Intentional Stance. The MIT Press: Cambridge, MA, 1987.
E. A. Emerson and J. Y. Halpern. 'sometimes’ and ‘not never’ revisited: on branching time versus linear time temporal logic. Journal of the ACM, 33(1): 151–178, 1986.
M. Fisher. A survey of Concurrent MetateM—the language and its applications. In D. M. Gabbay and H. J. Ohlbach, editors, Temporal Logic — Proceedings of the First International Conference (LNAI Volume 827), pages 480–505. Springer-Verlag: Heidelberg, Germany, July 1994.
M. Fisher. Executable temporal logic. The Knowledge Engineering Review, 1996.
M. Fisher and M. Wooldridge. Executable temporal logic for distributed A.I. In Proceedings of the Twelfth International Workshop on Distributed Artificial Intelligence (IWDAI-93), pages 131–142, Hidden Valley, PA, May 1993.
M. R. Genesereth and S. P. Ketchpel. Software agents. Communications of the ACM, 37(7):48–53, July 1994.
M. P. Georgeff and A. L. Lansky. Reactive reasoning and planning. In Proceedings of the Sixth National Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-87), pages 677–682, Seattle, WA, 1987.
J. Y. Halpern and M. Y. Vardi. Model checking versus theorem proving: A manifesto. In V. Lifschitz, editor, AI and Mathematical Theory of Computation — Papers in Honor of John McCarthy. Academic Press, 1991.
C. A. R. Hoare. An axiomatic basis for computer programming. Communications of the ACM, 12(10):576–583, 1969.
C. A. R. Hoare. Communicating sequential processes. Communications of the ACM, 21:666–677, 1978.
C. B. Jones. Systematic Software Development using VDM (second edition). Prentice Hall, 1990.
L. P. Kaelbling. Learning in Embedded Systems. The MIT Press: Cambridge, MA, 1993.
L. P. Kaelbling and S. J. Rosenschein. Action and planning in embedded agents. In P. Maes, editor, Designing Autonomous Agents, pages 35–48. The MIT Press: Cambridge, MA, 1990.
D. Kinny, M. Georgeff, and A. Rao. A methodology and modelling technique for systems of BDI agents. In W. Van de Velde and J. W. Perram, editors, Agents Breaking Away: Proceedings of the Seventh European Workshop on Modelling Autonomous Agents in a Multi-Agent World, (LNAI Volume 1038), pages 56–71. Springer-Verlag: Heidelberg, Germany, 1996.
O. Lichtenstein and A. Pnueli. Checking that finite state concurrent programs satisfy their linear specification. In Proceedings of the Eleventh ACM Symposium on the Principles of Programming Languages, pages 97–107, 1984.
P. Maes. Situated agents can have goals. In P. Maes, editor, Designing Autonomous Agents, pages 49–70. The MIT Press: Cambridge, MA, 1990.
P. Maes. Agents that reduce work and information overload. Communications of the ACM, 37(7):31–40, July 1994.
Z. Manna and A. Pnueli. Temporal Verification of Reactive Systems — Safety. Springer-Verlag: Heidelberg, Germany, 1995.
Z. Manna and P. Wolper. Synthesis of communicating processes from temporal logic specifications. ACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems, 6(1):68–93, January 1984.
C. Morgan. Programming from Specifications (second edition) Prentice Hall International: Hemel Hempstead, England, 1994.
A. Pnueli. Specification and development of reactive systems. In Information Processing 86. Elsevier Science Publishers B.V.: Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 1986.
A. Pnueli and R. Rosner. On the synthesis of a reactive module. In Proceedings of the Sixteenth ACM Symposium on the Principles of Programming Languages (POPL), pages 179–190, January 1989.
A. S. Rao and M. Georgeff. BDI Agents: from theory to practice. In Proceedings of the First International Conference on Multi-Agent Systems (ICMAS-95), pages 312–319, San Francisco, CA, June 1995.
A. S. Rao and M. P. Georgeff. Modeling rational agents within a BDI-architecture. In R. Fikes and E. Sandewall, editors, Proceedings of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning (KR&R-91), pages 473–484. Morgan Kaufmann Publishers: San Mateo, CA, April 1991.
A. S. Rao and M. P. Georgeff. An abstract architecture for rational agents. In C. Rich, W. Swartout, and B. Nebel, editors, Proceedings of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning (KR&R-92), pages 439–449, 1992.
A. S. Rao and M. P. Georgeff. A model-theoretic approach to the verification of situated reasoning systems. In Proceedings of the Thirteenth International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI-93), pages 318–324, Chambéry, France, 1993.
A. S. Rao and M. P. Georgeff. Formal models and decision procedures for multi-agent systems. Technical Note 61, Australian AI Institute, Level 6, 171 La Trobe Street, Melbourne, Australia, June 1995.
S. Rosenschein and L. P. Kaelbling. The synthesis of digital machines with provable epistemic properties. In J. Y. Halpern, editor, Proceedings of the 1986 Conference on Theoretical Aspects of Reasoning About Knowledge, pages 83–98. Morgan Kaufmann Publishers: San Mateo, CA, 1986.
M. J. Schoppers. Universal plans for reactive robots in unpredictable environments. In Proceedings of the Tenth International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI-87), pages 1039–1046, Milan, Italy, 1987.
Y. Shoham. Agent-oriented programming. Artificial Intelligence, 60(1):51–92, 1993.
M. Spivey. The Z Notation (second edition). Prentice Hall International: Hemel Hempstead, England, 1992.
M. Wooldridge. The Logical Modelling of Computational Multi-Agent Systems. PhD thesis, Department of Computation, UMIST, Manchester, UK, October 1992. (Also available as Technical Report MMU-DOC-94-01, Department of Computing, Manchester Metropolitan University, Chester St., Manchester, UK).
M. Wooldridge. This is MyWorld: The logic of an agent-oriented testbed for DAI. In M. Wooldridge and N. R. Jennings, editors, Intelligent Agents: Theories, Architectures, and Languages (LNAI Volume 890), pages 160–178. Springer-Verlag: Heidelberg, Germany, January 1995.
M. Wooldridge and M. Fisher. A decision procedure for a temporal belief logic. In D. M. Gabbay and H. J. Ohlbach, editors, Temporal Logic — Proceedings of the First International Conference (LNAI Volume 827), pages 317–331. Springer-Verlag: Heidelberg, Germany, July 1994.
M. Wooldridge and N. R. Jennings. Intelligent agents: Theory and practice. The Knowledge Engineering Review, 10(2):115–152, 1995.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1997 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Wooldridge, M. (1997). Issues in agent-based software engineering. In: Kandzia, P., Klusch, M. (eds) Cooperative Information Agents. CIA 1997. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 1202. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-62591-7_21
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-62591-7_21
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-62591-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-68321-6
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive