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2015 Volume 30
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RESEARCH ARTICLE   Open Access    

Towards next generation coordination infrastructures

  • 1.

    IIIA

  • 2.

    MAiA Department

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  • Abstract: Coordination infrastructures play a central role in the engineering of multiagent systems. Since the advent of agent technology, research on coordination infrastructures has produced a significant number of infrastructures with varying features. In this paper, we review the the state-of-the-art coordination infrastructures with the purpose of identifying open research challenges that next generation coordination infrastructures should address. Our analysis concludes that next generation coordination infrastructures must address a number of challenges: (i) to become socially aware, by facilitating human interaction within a MAS; (ii) to assist agents in their decision making by providing decision support that helps them reduce the scope of reasoning and facilitates the achievement of their goals; and (iii) to increase openness to support on-line, fully decentralised design and execution. Furthermore, we identify some promising approaches in the literature, together with the research issues worth investigating, to cope with such challenges.
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  • Cite this article

    Juan A. Rodriguez-Aguilar, Carles Sierra, Josep Ll. Arcos, Maite Lopez-Sanchez, Inmaculada Rodriguez. 2015. Towards next generation coordination infrastructures. The Knowledge Engineering Review 30(4)435−453, doi: 10.1017/S0269888915000090
    Juan A. Rodriguez-Aguilar, Carles Sierra, Josep Ll. Arcos, Maite Lopez-Sanchez, Inmaculada Rodriguez. 2015. Towards next generation coordination infrastructures. The Knowledge Engineering Review 30(4)435−453, doi: 10.1017/S0269888915000090
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RESEARCH ARTICLE   Open Access    

Towards next generation coordination infrastructures

  • 1.

    IIIA

  • 2.

    MAiA Department

  • Published online: 03 September 2015
The Knowledge Engineering Review  30,  2015, 30(4): 435−453  |  Cite this article

Abstract: Abstract: Coordination infrastructures play a central role in the engineering of multiagent systems. Since the advent of agent technology, research on coordination infrastructures has produced a significant number of infrastructures with varying features. In this paper, we review the the state-of-the-art coordination infrastructures with the purpose of identifying open research challenges that next generation coordination infrastructures should address. Our analysis concludes that next generation coordination infrastructures must address a number of challenges: (i) to become socially aware, by facilitating human interaction within a MAS; (ii) to assist agents in their decision making by providing decision support that helps them reduce the scope of reasoning and facilitates the achievement of their goals; and (iii) to increase openness to support on-line, fully decentralised design and execution. Furthermore, we identify some promising approaches in the literature, together with the research issues worth investigating, to cope with such challenges.

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    Acknowledgments

    • This work was funded by AT (CONSOLIDER CSD2007-0022), EVE (TIN2009-14702-C02-01,TIN2009-14702-C02-02), COR (TIN2012-38876-C02-01, TIN2012-38876-C02-02), MECER (201250E053) and the Generalitat of Catalunya (2009-SGR-1434).

    • ‘An open system is one in which the structure of the system itself is capable of dynamically changing. The characteristics of such a system are that its components are not known in advance; can change over time; and can consist of highly heterogeneous agents implemented by different people, at different times, with different software tools and techniques’ (Sycara, 1998).

    • http://www.fipa.org.

    • In fact, WADE considers two application contexts: (i) WADE is used as a workflow engine and workflows implement processes that coordinate different systems (e.g. agents); and (ii) WADE is used as a agent-oriented development framework and workflows implement agent tasks.

    • OR4MAS employs CArtAgO to provide a coordination infrastructure for the Moise+ model (Hubner et al.2002). Thus, while an organisation is specified following the Moise+ model, CArtAgO is used to implement the coordination infrastructure.

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    Juan A. Rodriguez-Aguilar, Carles Sierra, Josep Ll. Arcos, Maite Lopez-Sanchez, Inmaculada Rodriguez. 2015. Towards next generation coordination infrastructures. The Knowledge Engineering Review 30(4)435−453, doi: 10.1017/S0269888915000090
    Juan A. Rodriguez-Aguilar, Carles Sierra, Josep Ll. Arcos, Maite Lopez-Sanchez, Inmaculada Rodriguez. 2015. Towards next generation coordination infrastructures. The Knowledge Engineering Review 30(4)435−453, doi: 10.1017/S0269888915000090
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