Developing an Agent Systems Reference Architecture

One reason for the slow adoption in industry of agent-oriented methodologies as a paradigm for developing systems is the lack of integration and generalpurpose technologies. To this end, there is a need to define common patterns, relationships between components, and structural qualities of an agent system. A reference architecture for agent-based systems would suit this need. This work describes the methodology for constructing an agent systems reference architecture by combining reverse software engineering techniques and tools and a documentation methodology. The goal of the resulting reference architecture is to identify common patterns and relationships between concepts present in agent systems to aid in describing and designing new agent systems.