MAS@ApplSci2024

Research on Intelligent Agents and MASs has blossomed recently, incorporating new artificial intelligence techniques, and leading to real-world applications in complex environments like manufacturing and healthcare. This success is driven by the field's strong interdisciplinary nature and solid engineering foundations, drawing on logic, machine learning, game theory, distributed systems, and software engineering. The increasing need for distributed and dynamic computing systems, where independent entities interact, further fuels interest in MASs. The future of MASs is bright, with potential for significant advancements coming from integrations with large language models (LLMs), simulation tools, and machine and reinforcement learning. These integrations could push the boundaries of agent capabilities and open doors to even more powerful applications. At the same time, however, new engineering challenges await those who venture on these emerging research paths. In this Special Issue, we welcome contributions focussing on (present or future) practical applications of MASs, possibly involving the aforementioned integrations.

• convergence of agents and machine learning techniques
• convergence of agents and LLM
• agent and multi-agent applications
• agent-based engineering (development of techniques, tools, and platforms)
• agent-based simulation (development of techniques, tools, and platforms)
• biologically inspired approaches and methods for multi-agent systems
• agent-based (distributed) collective intelligence
• agent-based distributed problem solving
• human–robot/agent interaction
• learning and adaptation in multi-agent systems
• multi-robot systems
• negotiation and conflict resolution in multi-agent systems
• reasoning in agent-based systems
• self-organization in multi-agent systems
• multi-agent planning
• hybrid planning
• trust and reputation in multi-agent systems
• agents applied to cyber–physical systems (such as Internet of Things)
• convergence of blockchain (and smart contract) and multi-agent system technologies