Structured Acceptance Test Suite Generation Process for Multi-Agent System

In recent years, Agent-Oriented Software Engineering (AOSE) methodologies are proposed to develop complex distributed systems based upon the agent paradigm. The implementation for such systems has usually the form of Multi-Agent Systems (MAS). Testing of MAS is a challenging task because these systems are often programmed to be autonomous and deliberative, and they operate in an open world, which requires context awareness. In this paper, we introduce a novel approach for goal-oriented software acceptance testing. It specifies a testing process that complements the goal oriented methodology Tropos and strengthens the mutual relationship between goal analysis and testing. Furthermore, it defines a structured and comprehensive acceptance testing process for engineering software agents by providing a systematic way of deriving test cases from goal analysis.