Engineering Adaptive Multi-Agent Systems: The ADELFE Methodology

This chapter introduces the ADELFE methodology, an agent-oriented methodology dedicated to the design of systems that are complex, open, and not well-specified. The need for its development is justified by the theoretical background given in the first section, which also gives an overview of the concepts on which multi-agent systems developed with ADELFE are based. A methodology is composed of a process, a notation, and tools. Tools are presented in the second section and the process in the third one, using an information system case study to better visualize how to apply this process. The last part of the chapter assesses strengths and limitations of ADELFE. We note that its main strength is also its main limitation—it is a specialized methodology, especially suited to the development of software with emergent functionalities.