Performance evaluation of multiagent systems: Communication criterion

Abstract

Many MultiAgent Systems (MAS) have been developed in various application domains such as computer networks, Internet, industrial applications, automation, process control, air traffic, robotic, simulation, etc. In spite of the rapid growth of the international interest in MAS field and the importance of the number of developed MAS, there is still a lack related to their performance evaluation. In fact, there is no measurement tool that allows evaluating the performance of a MAS or comparing two MAS. The existing works on systems performance evaluation deal principally with classic computer systems. In this paper, we try to identify the MAS' special features and properties which have an impact on their performance and we propose a measurement model to evaluate one of these properties: communication. This model is based on the graph theory. An experimentation of the proposed evaluation model is carried out and tested on a diagnosis application. © 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.