Formal specification of holonic multi-agent systems framework

Abstract

Even if software agents and multi-agent systems (MAS) are recognized as both useful abstractions and effective technologies for modeling and building complex distributed applications, they are still difficult to engineer. When massive number of autonomous components interact it is very difficult to predict the behavior of the system and guarantee that the desired functionalities will be fulfilled. Moreover, it seems improbable that a rigid unscalable organization could handle a real world problem. This paper presents a holonic framework where agents exhibit self-organization according to the tasks at hand. We specify formally this framework and prove some properties on the possible evolutions of these systems. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2005.