Self-Organisation and Emergence in MAS: An Overview

The spread of the Internet and the evolution of mobile communication, have created new possibilities for software applications such as ubiquitous computing, dynamic supply chains and medical home care. Such systems need to operate in dynamic, heterogeneous environments and face the challenge of handling frequently changing requirements; therefore they must be flexible, robust and capable of adapting to the circumstances. It is widely believed that multi-agent systems coordinated by self-organisation and emergence mechanisms are an effective way to design these systems. This paper aims to define the concepts of self-organisation and emergence and to provide a state of the art survey about the different classes of self-organisation mechanisms applied in the multi-agent systems domain. Furthermore, the strengths and limits of these approaches are examined and research issues are provided.

keywords   multi-agent systems, self-organisation, emergence

origin event

 Special Issue “Hot Topics in European Agent Research II”

 AL3-TF2

journal or series

 Informatica (Informatica)

container publication

 Special Issue “Hot Topics in European Agent Research II” (special issue, 2006) — Andrea Omicini, Paolo Petta, Matjaz Gams

companion publication

 The Second AgentLink III Technical Forum: Main Issues and Hot Topics in European Agent Research – Part 2 (editorial/introduction/preface, 2006) — Andrea Omicini, Paolo Petta, Matjaz Gams

 Issues in Multiagent Resource Allocation (article in journal, 2006) — Yann Chevaleyre, Paul E. Dunne, Ulle Endriss, Jérôme Lang, Michel Lemaître, Nicolas Maudet, Julian Padget, Steve Phelps, Juan A. Rodríguez-Aguilar, Paulo Sousa

 A Survey of Programming Languages and Platforms for Multi-Agent Systems (article in journal, 2006) — Rafael H. Bordini, Lars Braubach, Mehdi Dastani, Amal El Fallah Seghrouchni, Jorge J. Gómez-Sanz, João Leite, Gregory O’Hare, Alexander Pokahr, Alessandro Ricci

 Bio-inspired Mechanisms for Artificial Self-organised Systems (article in journal, 2006) — Jean-Pierre Mano, Christine Bourjot, Gabriel Lopardo, Pierre Glize

 On Self-Organising Mechanisms from Social, Business and Economic Domains (article in journal, 2006) — Salima Hassas, Giovanna Di Marzo Serugendo, Anthony Karageorgos, Cristiano Castelfranchi

 Applications of Self-Organising Multi-Agent Systems: An Initial Framework for Comparison (article in journal, 2006) — Carole Bernon, Vincent Chevrier, Vincent Hilaire, Paul Marrow

funding project

 AgentLink III — A Coordination Network for Agent-based Computing (01/01/2004–31/01/2006)

companion publication for

 A Survey of Programming Languages and Platforms for Multi-Agent Systems (article in journal, 2006) — Rafael H. Bordini, Lars Braubach, Mehdi Dastani, Amal El Fallah Seghrouchni, Jorge J. Gómez-Sanz, João Leite, Gregory O’Hare, Alexander Pokahr, Alessandro Ricci

 Bio-inspired Mechanisms for Artificial Self-organised Systems (article in journal, 2006) — Jean-Pierre Mano, Christine Bourjot, Gabriel Lopardo, Pierre Glize

 Issues in Multiagent Resource Allocation (article in journal, 2006) — Yann Chevaleyre, Paul E. Dunne, Ulle Endriss, Jérôme Lang, Michel Lemaître, Nicolas Maudet, Julian Padget, Steve Phelps, Juan A. Rodríguez-Aguilar, Paulo Sousa

 On Self-Organising Mechanisms from Social, Business and Economic Domains (article in journal, 2006) — Salima Hassas, Giovanna Di Marzo Serugendo, Anthony Karageorgos, Cristiano Castelfranchi

 The Second AgentLink III Technical Forum: Main Issues and Hot Topics in European Agent Research – Part 2 (editorial/introduction/preface, 2006) — Andrea Omicini, Paolo Petta, Matjaz Gams

 Applications of Self-Organising Multi-Agent Systems: An Initial Framework for Comparison (article in journal, 2006) — Carole Bernon, Vincent Chevrier, Vincent Hilaire, Paul Marrow