DDEMAS: A domain design technique for multi-agent domain engineering

Abstract

Multi-agent Domain Engineering is a process for the construction of domain-specific agent-oriented reusable software artifacts, like domain models representing the requirements of a family of multi-agent systems, and frameworks, implementing an agent-oriented solution to those requirements. This work describes DDEMAS, an ontology-based technique for the architectural and detailed design of multi-agent frameworks providing a solution to the requirements of a family of multi-agent software systems specified in a domain model. DDEMAS is part of MADEM, a methodology for domain analysis and design of a family of multi-agent systems in a domain. Domain models and multi-agent frameworks are part of a knowledge base constructed through the instantiation of ONTOMADEM, an ontology that represents the knowledge of MADEM. Some examples from a case study on the application of DDEMAS on the construction of a multi-agent framework for the development of usage mining-based Web personalization systems are also described. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2005.