Abstract
Multi-agent systems (MAS) are a special kind of distributed systems in which the main entities are autonomous in a proactive sense. These systems are special distributed systems because of their complexity and hence their unpredictability. Agents can spontaneously engage in complex interactions, guided by their own goals and intentions. When developing such kinds of system, there are many problems the developer has to face. All these problems make it virtually impossible to totally debug a quite complex multi-agent system (i.e. a MAS in which hundreds or even thousands of agents are involved). In this article we present a debugging tool we have developed for the JADE agents platform. Hence, it is a FIPA technology based tool and seeks to alleviate typical debugging problems derived from distribution and unpredictability.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Austin, J.L.: How to Do Things with Words. Oxford University Press, Oxford (1962)
Dale, J., Mamdani, E.: Open standards for interoperating agent-based systems. Software Focus 2(1) (2001)
Flater, D.W.: Debugging agent interactions: a case study. Selected Areas in Cryptography,107–114 (2001)
Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents. FIPA contract net interaction protocol specification. Technical report, FIPA (August 2001)
Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents. FIPA query interaction protocol specification. Technical report, FIPA (August 2001)
Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents. FIPA request interaction protocol specification. Technical report, FIPA (August 2001)
Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents. FIPA Communicative Act Library Specification. SC00037 (2002)
Guha, S., Rastogi, R., Shim, K.: ROCK: A robust clustering algorithm for categorical attributes. Information Systems 25(5), 345–366 (2000), citeseer.nj.nec.com/guha00rock.html
Mitchell, T.M.: Machine Learning. McGraw-Hill, New York (1997)
Muller, J.P.: The Design of Intelligent Agents. In: Saad, Y., Yang, T., Ferreira, A., Rolim, J.D.P. (eds.) IRREGULAR 1996. LNCS, vol. 1117, Springer, Heidelberg (1996)
Poutakidis, D., Padgham, L., Winikoff, M.: Debugging multi-agent systems using design artifacts: The case of interaction protocols. In: AAMAS 2002, Bologna, Italy (July 2002)
Smith, R.R.: The contract net protocol: High-level communication and control in a distributed problem solver. In: Bond, A.H., Gasser, L. (eds.) Readings in Distributed Artificial Intelligence, Los Altos, CA, pp. 357–366. Morgan Kaufmann, San Francisco (1988)
Van Liederke, M.H., Avouris, N.M.: Debugging multi-agent systems. Information and Software Technology 37(2), 103–112 (1995)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2004 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Botía, J.A., Hernansáez, J.M., Skarmeta, F.G. (2004). Towards an Approach for Debugging MAS Through the Analysis of ACL Messages. In: Lindemann, G., Denzinger, J., Timm, I.J., Unland, R. (eds) Multiagent System Technologies. MATES 2004. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 3187. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-30082-3_22
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-30082-3_22
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-23222-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-30082-3
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive