Coordination of Software Agents: Models and Languages

Giacomo Cabri; Letizia Leonardi; Stefano Mariani; Franco Zambonelli

doi:10.1007/978-3-032-22940-3_5

Coordination of Software Agents: Models and Languages

Giacomo Cabri, Letizia Leonardi, Stefano Mariani, Franco Zambonelli

Viviana Mascardi, Andrea Omicini (eds.)

The Agents Journey: Twenty-Five Years of Multi-agent Systems, chapter 5, pages 127–146

Lecture Notes in Computer Science (State-of-the-Art Survey) 16395

Springer Nature Switzerland

April 2026

Software agents are autonomous components that perform tasks on the behalf of users. In many contexts, agents do not exist in isolation, but they must interact with other agents, leading to multiagent systems (MASs). No matter whether they collaborate or compete in MASs, coordination is needed to rule their interactions and to support them in their activities. In this chapter, we present the agent coordination models defined in the last 25 years taking the contributions to the WOA workshops as fil rouge, along with the languages that have been proposed to allow agent coordination. In addition, we sketch how the research on agent coordination has paved the way to be applied in several application fields, such as autonomic computing, self-organizing systems, energy management, and autonomous vehicles.

keywords Coordination, multi-agent system, models, languages

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Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS)

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The Agents Journey (edited volume, 2026) — Viviana Mascardi, Andrea Omicini

companion publication

Preface (editorial/introduction/preface, 2026) — Viviana Mascardi, Andrea Omicini

Evolution of Programming Languages in Agent Systems and the Role of Computational Logic (book chapter, 2026) — Alina Vozna, Andrea Monaldini, Stefania Costantini, Giovanni De Gasperis, Pierangelo dell’Acqua, Andrea Formisano, Andrea Rafanelli

Looking for the Best Partners (book chapter, 2026) — Domenico Rosaci, Giuseppe M. L. Sarnè

Trust Evolution in Agent and Multi-agent Systems: A Computational Modeling Perspective (book chapter, 2026) — Alessandro Sapienza, Filippo Cantucci, Cristiano Castelfranchi, Rino Falcone

Interaction Protocols: From AUML to Social Commitments, from Artifacts to BSPL (book chapter, 2026) — Matteo Baldoni, Cristina Baroglio, Roberto Micalizio

Self-organisation with Aggregate Computing: A Reflection Under the Lenses of Multi-agent Systems Engineering (book chapter, 2026) — Gianluca Aguzzi, Roberto Casadei, Danilo Pianini, Mirko Viroli

Rethinking Software Agents as Building Blocks of Software Systems (book chapter, 2026) — Federico Bergenti, Stefania Monica

Designing Agent-Oriented Systems (book chapter, 2026) — Massimo Cossentino, Luca Sabatucci, Valeria Seidita

Agent-Based Computing for Science and Engineering: Back to the Future and Beyond... (book chapter, 2026) — Alfredo Garro

Simulation and Agent-Based Simulation at WOA: 25 of Years of Simulation-Related Contributions, and an Outlook of What Awaits Us (book chapter, 2026) — Giuseppe Vizzari, Daniela Briola

25 Years of Declarative Agent Technologies in Italy (book chapter, 2026) — Davide Ancona, Daniela Briola, Angelo Ferrando, Maurizio Martelli, Viviana Mascardi

Intelligent Agents from Symbolic to Neurosymbolic Systems: The Quest for Integration (book chapter, 2026) — Andrea Agiollo, Roberta Calegari, Giovanni Ciatto, Matteo Magnini, Andrea Omicini, Federico Sabbatini

From Objects to Agents, and Back to Smart Objects: Software Agents for Intelligent Internet of Things (IoT) Systems (book chapter, 2026) — Daniel-Costel Bouleanu, Marco Loaiza, Claudio Savaglio, Costin Bădică, Raffaele Gravina, Giancarlo Fortino

AI Infrastructure: From Gigastructure to Edge Intelligence with Multi-Agent Systems (book chapter, 2026) — Andrea Omicini, Alessandro Ricci, Viviana Mascardi

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