A PATTERN FOR MULTIAGENT SYSTEMS

Elizabeth A. Kendall, Margaret T. Malkoun, C. Harvey Jiang

Computer Systems Engineering
Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology
City Campus
GPO Box 2476V
Melbourne, VIC 3001 AUSTRALIA

contact name:  Dr. Elizabeth A. Kendall
phone:  61 3 9660 5305
fax (recommended rather than phone): 61 3 9660 5340
email address:  kendall@rmit.edu.au

ABSTRACT

The relationships between agents and objects, and the role of object
oriented analysis in multiagent system development have been discussed
in earlier papers; these findings are employed here as a foundation
for agent design.  The role of patterns for multiagent systems is
discussed, and individual patterns are proposed to address agent
concurrency, collaboration, and reasoning.  The paper illustrates how
to employ several patterns in concert to yield an architecture for
multiagent systems, and clarifies how sets of objects can be employed
to design agents, important software abstractions for pro-active
behavior and distributed problem solving.