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Modeling Agent Interaction Protocols with AUML Diagrams and Petri Nets

Lawrence Cabac .
Modeling agent interaction protocols with AUML diagrams and Petri nets.
Diplomarbeit, Universität Hamburg, Fachbereich Informatik, Vogt-Kölln Str. 30, D-22527 Hamburg, December 2003.

Abstract: Agents are autonomous software components that can communicate with other agents. In the software engineering view agents can be regarded as generalizations of objects. Agents have knowledge of their environment, can act proactively and have a certain goal that they want to reach. Several agents that are communicating with each other to follow an individual or common goal are forming a society of agents called a multi-agent system. As a reference architecture Mulan, a Petri net-based agent platform on which multi-agent systems can be build, is introduced. In this work modeling techniques for agent interaction protocols are introduced. These interactions, also called conversations, are modeled with AUML diagrams and Petri nets. In the agent unified modeling language (AUML) some extensions are proposed for sequence diagrams as defined in the unified modeling language (UML). The agent interaction protocol diagrams that are developed in this work, which are used to model conversations, are a variant of these extended sequence diagrams. The aim in using the agent interaction protocol diagrams, which are restricted to certain elements and constellations of elements, is to achieve a modeling technique for Mulan-based agent interaction protocols that is consistent and helps the developers in the development process of Mulan protocols. These protocols, which are Petri nets, are implementations of agent interactions within Mulan. The presented work also introduces a straightforward approach for generation of Petri net code structures from AUML agent interaction protocol diagrams. This approach is based on the usage of net components that provide basic tasks and the structure for the Petri nets. Agent interaction protocol diagrams are used to model agent conversations on an abstract level. By mapping elements of the diagrams to net components, it is possible to generate code structures from the drawings. For this approach tool support is provided by combining net components with a tool for drawing agent interaction protocol diagrams. This combined tool is integrated in Renew (Reference Net Workshop) as a plug-in.

BibTeX entry

@mastersthesis{Cabac03b,
  author =   {Cabac, Lawrence},
  title =   {Modeling Agent Interaction Protocols with {AUML} Diagrams and {Petri} Nets},
  school =  FBIUniHHbis2005,
  address =   FBIUniAdresse,
  year =   2003,
  month =   dec,
  type =   diplomarbeit,
  abstract =  {Agents are autonomous software components that can
                            communicate with other agents. In the software
                            engineering view agents can be regarded as
                            generalizations of objects. Agents have knowledge of
                            their environment, can act proactively and have a
                            certain goal that they want to reach. Several agents
                            that are communicating with each other to follow an
                            individual or common goal are forming a society of
                            agents called a multi-agent system. As a reference
                            architecture Mulan, a Petri net-based agent platform
                            on which multi-agent systems can be build, is
                            introduced. In this work modeling techniques for
                            agent interaction protocols are introduced. These
                            interactions, also called conversations, are modeled
                            with AUML diagrams and Petri nets. In the agent
                            unified modeling language (AUML) some extensions are
                            proposed for sequence diagrams as defined in the
                            unified modeling language (UML). The agent
                            interaction protocol diagrams that are developed
                            in this work, which are used to model conversations,
                            are a variant of these extended sequence
                            diagrams. The aim in using the agent interaction
                            protocol diagrams, which are restricted to certain
                            elements and constellations of elements, is to
                            achieve a modeling technique for Mulan-based agent
                            interaction protocols that is consistent and helps
                            the developers in the development process of Mulan
                            protocols. These protocols, which are Petri nets,
                            are implementations of agent interactions within
                            Mulan. The presented work also introduces a
                            straightforward approach for generation of Petri net
                            code structures from AUML agent interaction protocol
                            diagrams. This approach is based on the usage of net
                            components that provide basic tasks and the
                            structure for the Petri nets. Agent interaction
                            protocol diagrams are used to model agent
                            conversations on an abstract level. By mapping
                            elements of the diagrams to net components, it is
                            possible to generate code structures from the
                            drawings. For this approach tool support is provided
                            by combining net components with a tool for drawing
                            agent interaction protocol diagrams. This combined
                            tool is integrated in Renew (Reference Net Workshop)
                            as a plug-in.}
}

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