Authors:
João Lopes
1
and
Henrique Lopes Cardoso
2
Affiliations:
1
Universidade do Porto, Portugal
;
2
LIACC – Laboratório de Inteligência Artificial e Ciência de Computadores, Portugal
Keyword(s):
Multi-Agent Systems, Multi-Agent-Based Simulation, Model Conversion, Standards.
Related
Ontology
Subjects/Areas/Topics:
Agent Platforms and Interoperability
;
Agents
;
Artificial Intelligence
;
Artificial Intelligence and Decision Support Systems
;
Bioinformatics
;
Biomedical Engineering
;
Distributed and Mobile Software Systems
;
Enterprise Information Systems
;
Information Systems Analysis and Specification
;
Knowledge Engineering and Ontology Development
;
Knowledge-Based Systems
;
Methodologies and Technologies
;
Multi-Agent Systems
;
Operational Research
;
Programming Environments and Languages
;
Simulation
;
Software Engineering
;
Symbolic Systems
Abstract:
Multi-agent systems (MAS) present an effective approach to the efficient development of modular systems composed of interacting agents. Several frameworks exist that aid the development of MAS, but they are often not very appropriate for some kind of uses, such as for Multi-Agent-based Simulation (MABS). Other frameworks exist for running simulations, sharing little with the former. While open agent-based applications benefit from adopting development and interaction standards, such as those proposed by FIPA, most MABS frameworks do not support them. In this paper we propose an approach to bridge the gap between the development and simulation of MAS, by putting forward two complementary tools. The Simple API for JADE-based Simulations (SAJaS) enhances MABS frameworks with JADE-based features, and the MAS Simulation to Development (MASSim2Dev) tool allows the automatic conversion of a SAJaS-based simulation into a JADE MAS, and vice-versa. Repast Simphony was used as the base MABS fra
mework. Our proposal provides increased simulation performance while enabling JADE programmers to quickly develop their simulation models using familiar concepts. Validation tests demonstrate the significant performance gain in using SAJaS with Repast Simphony when compared with JADE and show that using MASSim2Dev preserves the original functionality of the system.
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