In this paper we present mobile Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) as a specific paradigm to design intelligent and distributed applications in the context of Ambient Intelligence (AmI). We discuss how mobility, coupled with MAS, can be useful to meet the requirements of AmI. Indeed, the main features of mobile MAS, such as natural distribution of the system, inherent intelligence of the agents, and the...

Despite the considerable efforts researching and developing Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) there is a noticeable absence of deployed systems. In the past the MAS research community ignored this problem arguing that it is not a genuine MAS problem and consequently of lesser importance than other unsolved issues like cooperation, coordination, negotiation and communication. However, as the field matur...

Multi-agent systems (MAS) are now being considered a promising architectural approach for designing collaborative information systems. In such a perspective, the concept of delegation has often been considered as a key concept for modeling cooperative behavior in MAS. However, despite considerable work on delegation mechanisms in MAS, few research efforts have aimed at truly defining a delegati...

This paper outlines a practical approach to the formal development of multi-agent systems (MAS). Rigorous design practices are needed if MAS are to be used for critical applications. Event-B is a formal method that can be used in the development of reactive systems. Decomposition is used as part of the approach to reduce the complexity of modelling MAS. The experience of modelling MAS Interacti...

Naming and capability-mediated services, such as Agent Name Services and middle agents, perform a fundamental task in the Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) infrastructures, because they allow agents to find each other and interoperate. Because of their importance in the MAS, the scalability of naming and capability-mediation services is crucial to guarantee the overall scalability of the MAS. Surprisin...

This paper attempts to articulate the general role of infrastructure for multi-agent systems (MAS), and why infrastructure is a particularly critical issue if we are to increase the visibility and impact of multi-agent systems as a universal technology and solution. Second, it presents my current thinking on the socio-technical content of the needed infrastructure in four different corners of t...

Multi-agent systems (MAS) are efficient solutions for commercial applications such as robotics, business commerce applications, information retrieval and search engines. In MAS, agents are usually designed with distribution of functionality and control. Lack of central control implies that the quality of service of MAS may be degraded because of possible unwanted behavior at runtime, commonly k...

Progress in software engineering over the past two or three decades has primarily been made through the development of increasingly powerful and natural abstractions, with which to model and develop complex systems. This progress has led to the notion of Multi-Agent Systems (MAS), which is seen as, yet, an increase of abstraction compared to the object-oriented approach. The MAS society has pro...

In this work, we propose a novel probabilistic modeling language PML-MAS to capture the stochastic characteristics of multi-agent systems (MASs). Moreover, we design a model checking framework for MAS, which is highly extensible. It provides powerful modeling editor, interactive simulator and automatic verifier for MASs. In addition, it can support various MAS model languages via extracting the...

In this work, we propose a novel probabilistic modeling language PML-MAS to capture the stochastic characteristics of multi-agent systems (MASs). Moreover, we design a model checking framework for MAS, which is highly extensible. It provides powerful modeling editor, interactive simulator and automatic verifier for MASs. In addition, it can support various MAS model languages via extracting the...