Environment as a First Class Abstraction in Multi-Agent Systems


Danny Weyns, Andrea Omicini, James J. Odell

Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems 14(1), pages 5–30
February 2007

The current practice in multiagent systems typically associates the environment with resources that are external to agents and their communication infrastructure. Advanced uses of the environment include infrastructures for indirect coordination, such as digital pheromones, or support for governed interaction in electronic institutions. Yet, in general, the notion of environment is not well defined. Functionalities of the environment are often dealt with implicitly or in an ad hoc manner. This is not only poor engineering practice, it also hinders engineers to exploit the full potential of the environment in multiagent systems.
In this paper, we put forward the environment as an explicit part of multiagent systems. We give a definition stating that the environment in a multiagent system is a first-class abstraction with dual roles: (1) the environment provides the surrounding conditions for agents to exist, which implies that the environment is an essential part of every multiagent system, and (2) the environment provides an exploitable design abstraction for building multiagent system applications. We discuss the responsibilities of such an environment in multiagent systems and we present a reference model for the environment that can serve as a basis for environment engineering. To illustrate the power of the environment as a design abstraction, we show how the environment is successfully exploited in a real world application. Considering the environment as a first-class abstraction in multiagent systems opens up new horizons for research and development in multiagent systems.

(keywords) Environment in multiagent systems; Definition, responsibilities, reference model of the environment

Journals & Series

Publication

— authors

Danny Weyns, Andrea Omicini, James J. Odell

— editors

Danny Weyns, H. Van Dyke Parunak

— status

published

— sort

article in journal

— publication date

February 2007

— journal

Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems

— volume

14

— issue

1

— pages

5–30

URLs

original page

identifiers

— DOI

10.1007/s10458-006-0012-0

— ACM

10.1007/s10458-006-0012-0

— IRIS

11585/35367

— Scholar

5825725922325667046

— Scopus

2-s2.0-35148899434

— WoS / ISI

000242155200002

— print ISSN

1387-2532

— online ISSN

1573-7454

notes

— note

Special Issue on Environments for Multi-agent Systems

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