Agent-based software engineering
Agent-based software engineering
- Author(s): M. Wooldridge
- DOI: 10.1049/ip-sen:19971026
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- Author(s): M. Wooldridge 1
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View affiliations
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Affiliations:
1: Mitsubishi Electric Digital Library Group, London, United Kingdom
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Affiliations:
1: Mitsubishi Electric Digital Library Group, London, United Kingdom
- Source:
Volume 144, Issue 1,
January 1997,
p.
26 – 37
DOI: 10.1049/ip-sen:19971026 , Print ISSN 1462-5970, Online ISSN 1463-9831
The technology of intelligent agents and multi-agent systems is expected to alter radically the way in which complex, distributed, open systems are conceptualised and implemented. The paper considers the problem of building a multi-agent system as a software engineering enterprise. Three issues are focused on: how agents might be specified; how these specifications might be refined or otherwise transformed into efficient implementations; and how implemented agents and multi-agent systems might subsequently be verified, to show that they are correct with respect to their specifications. These issues are discussed with reference to a number of case studies. The paper concludes by setting out some issues and open problems for future research.
Inspec keywords: cooperative systems; software engineering; software agents; formal specification; open systems
Other keywords:
Subjects: Software engineering techniques; Artificial intelligence (theory); Expert systems and other AI software and techniques
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