Component-Based Agent Architectures to Build Dedicated Agent Frameworks

In order to fill the gap between design and implementation of multi-agent systems, we introduce an intermediary phase in the development process that consists in implementing applicationspecific “models of agents”. Their realisation using multi-level software architectures relies on software components for separation of concerns and complies with agent-oriented requirements. Then, a dedicated agent framework is derived from the architecture, which can be more or less refined depending on the application requirements and the ability and skills of the targeted multi-agent developer. Finally, the agents of the multi-agent system are implemented using the framework by programming behaviours that make use of their respective model. We present MAY (MAKE AGENTS YOURSELF), a tool integrated into Eclipse that supports the description of agent architectures and their transformation into executable agents implementable in JAVA. An example illustrates the development process by following our approach and using MAY.