Designing Agents' Behaviors and Interactions within the Framework of ADELFE Methodology

ADELFE is a methodology devoted to software engineering of adaptive multi-agent systems. Adaptive software is used in situations in which the environment is unpredictable or the system is open; in these cases designers cannot implement a global control on the system and cannot list all situations that the system has to be faced with. To solve this problem ADELFE guarantees that the software is developed according to the AMAS (Adaptive Multi-Agent System) theory. This theory, based on self-organizing multi-agent systems, enables to build systems in which agents only pursue a local goal while trying to keep cooperative relations with other agents embedded in the system. ADELFE is linked with OpenTool, a commercialized graphical tool which supports UML notation. The paper focuses on the extension of OpenTool to take into account AMAS theory in designing agents’ behaviors. The modifications concern static aspects, by adding specific stereotypes, and dynamic aspects, with the automatic transformations from Agent Interaction Protocols into state machines. Then state machines simulate agent behaviors and enable testing and validating them.