Loris Penserini, Anna Perini, Angelo Susi, John Mylopoulos
ACM Transactions on Autonomous and Adaptive Systems 2(4), pages 1–27, article 16 (27 pages)
November 2007
Many classes of distributed applications, including e-business, e-government, and ambient intelligence, consist of networking infrastructures, where the nodes (peers)—be they software components, human actors or organizational units—cooperate with each other to achieve shared goals. The multi-agent system metaphor fits very well such settings because it is founded on intentional and social concepts and mechanisms. Not surprisingly, many agent-oriented software development methods have been proposed, including GAIA, PASSI, and Tropos. This paper extends the Tropos methodology, enhancing its ability to support high variability design through the explicit modelling of alternatives, it adopts an extended notion of agent capability and proposes a refined Tropos design process. The paper also presents an implemented software development environment for Tropos, founded on the Model-Driven Architecture (MDA) framework and standards. The extended Tropos development process is illustrated through a case study involving an e-commerce application.
keywords
Agent capability design, agent-oriented software engineering, early requirements, goal-oriented requirements engineering
origin event
journal or series
ACM Transactions on Autonomous and Adaptive Systems
(TAAS)
container publication
companion publication
funding project
AgentLink III — A Coordination Network for Agent-based Computing
(01/01/2004–31/01/2006)
works as
companion publication for
Special Issue on the AgentLink III Technical Forums (special issue, 2007) — Paolo Petta, Andrea Omicini, Terry R. Payne, Peter McBurney