Abstract
Intelligent agent technology has evolved rapidly over the past few years along with the growing number of agent applications in various domains. However, very little work has been dedicated to define quality metrics for the design of an agent-based system. Previous efforts mostly focus on adopting classical metrics such as coupling and cohesion to measure quality of an agent design. We argue that the time has come to work towards a set of software quality metrics that are specific to the distinct characteristics of agent-based systems. In this paper, we propose a method to measure the reactivity of an agent design which provides indications of how the agent system responds to changes in the environment in a timely fashion. The proposed metric is part of the framework which facilitates the restructuring of an Belief-Desire-Intention agent program to improve its reactivity. Our framework was developed into a prototype tool which is integrated with Jason, a well-known agent-oriented programming platform.
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.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Alonso, F., Fuertes, J.L., Martinez, L., Soza, H.: Towards a set of measures for evaluating software agent autonomy. In: Proceedings of the 2009 Eighth Mexican International Conference on Artificial Intelligence, MICAI 2009, pp. 73–78. IEEE Computer Society, Washington, DC (2009)
Alonso, F., Fuertes, J.L., Martinez, L., Soza, H.: Measuring the pro-activity of software agents. In: International Conference on Software Engineering Advances, pp. 319–324 (2010)
Barnes, G., Swim, B.: Inheriting software metrics. Journal of Object-Oriented Programming 6(7), 27–34 (1993)
Bordini, R.H., Dastani, M., Dix, J., El Fallah Seghrouchni, A. (eds.): Multi-Agent Programming: Languages, Platforms and Applications. Springer (2005)
Bordini, R.H., Hübner, J.F., Wooldridge, M.: Programming multi-agent systems in AgentSpeak using Jason. Wiley (2007) ISBN 0470029005
Busetta, P., Howden, N., Rönnquist, R., Hodgson, A.: Structuring BDI agents in functional clusters. In: Jennings, N.R. (ed.) ATAL 1999. LNCS, vol. 1757, pp. 277–289. Springer, Heidelberg (2000)
Cernuzzi, L., Rossi, G.: On the evaluation of agent oriented modeling methods. In: Proceedings of Agent Oriented Methodology Workshop, Seattle (2002)
Chidamber, S.R., Kemerer, C.F.: A metrics suite for object oriented design. IEEE Trans. Softw. Eng. 20, 476–493 (1994)
Dam, H.K., Ghose, A.: Automated change impact analysis for agent systems. In: Proceedings of the 27th IEEE International Conference on Software Maintenance, ICSM 2011, pp. 33–42. IEEE, Washington, DC (2011)
Dam, H.K., Ghose, A.: Supporting change impact analysis for intelligent agent systems. Science of Computer Programming 78(9), 1728–1750 (2013)
Dam, H.K., Winikoff, M.: An agent-oriented approach to change propagation in software maintenance. Journal of Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems 23(3), 384–452 (2011)
Dam, H.K., Winikoff, M.: Towards a next-generation AOSE methodology. Science of Computer Programming 78(6), 684–694 (2013)
Dam, K.H., Winikoff, M.: Cost-based BDI plan selection for change propagation. In: Padgham, Parkes, Müller, Parsons (eds.) Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS 2008), Estoril, Portugal, pp. 217–224 (May 2008)
Dastani, M., Birna Riemsdijk, M., Meyer, J.-J.: Programming multi-agent systems in 3APL. In: Bordini, R., Dastani, M., Dix, J., Fallah Seghrouchni, A. (eds.) Multi-Agent Programming. Multiagent Systems, Artificial Societies, and Simulated Organizations, vol. 15, pp. 39–67. Springer US (2005)
Fowler, M., Beck, K.: Refactoring: improving the design of existing code. Addison-Wesley Longman Publishing Co., Inc., Boston (1999)
Georgeff, M., Rao, A.: Rational software agents: From theory to practice. In: Agent Technology: Foundations, Applications, and Markets, ch. 8, pp. 139–160 (1998)
Henderson-Sellers, B., Giorgini, P. (eds.): Agent-Oriented Methodologies. Idea Group Publishing (2005)
Hindriks, K.V., de Boer, F.S., van der Hoek, W., Meyer, J.-J.C.: Agent programming with declarative goals. In: Castelfranchi, C., Lespérance, Y. (eds.) ATAL 2000. LNCS (LNAI), vol. 1986, p. 228. Springer, Heidelberg (2001)
Martin, C.E., Barber, K.S., Barber, K.S.: Agent autonomy: Specification, measurement, and dynamic adjustment. In: Proceedings of the Autonomy Control Software Workshop, Agents 1999, pp. 8–15 (1999)
Meneguzzi, F., Luck, M.: Composing high-level plans for declarative agent programming. In: Baldoni, M., Son, T.C., van Riemsdijk, M.B., Winikoff, M. (eds.) DALT 2007. LNCS (LNAI), vol. 4897, pp. 69–85. Springer, Heidelberg (2008)
Padgham, L., Winikoff, M.: Developing intelligent agent systems: A practical guide. John Wiley & Sons, Chichester (2004) ISBN 0-470-86120-7
Pavon, J., Gomez-Sanz, J.J., Fuentes, R.: The INGENIAS methodology and tools. In: Henderson-Sellers, B., Giorgini, P. (eds.) Agent-Oriented Methodologies, ch. IX, pp. 236–276. Idea Group Publishing (2005)
Pokahr, A., Braubach, L., Lamersdorf, W.: Jadex: A BDI reasoning engine. In: Bordini, R., Dastani, M., Dix, J., El Fallah Seghrouchni, A. (eds.) Multi-Agent Programming, pp. 149–174. Springer Science+Business Media Inc., USA (2005)
Rao, A.S.: AgentSpeak(L): BDI agents speak out in a logical computable language. In: Van de Velde, W., Perrame, J. (eds.) MAAMAW 1996. LNCS (LNAI), vol. 1038, pp. 42–55. Springer, Heidelberg (1996)
Sardina, S., de Silva, L., Padgham, L.: Hierarchical planning in bdi agent programming languages: a formal approach. In: Proceedings of the Fifth International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, AAMAS 2006, pp. 1001–1008 (2006)
Sardina, S., Padgham, L.: A BDI agent programming language with failure recovery, declarative goals, and planning. Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems 23(1), 18–70 (2011)
Thangarajah, J., Sardina, S., Padgham, L.: Measuring plan coverage and overlap for agent reasoning. In: Proceedings of the 11th International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS 2012), Valencia, Spain, pp. 1049–1056 (June 2012)
Tiryaki, A.M., Ekinci, E.E., Dikenelli, O.: Refactoring in multi agent system development. In: Bergmann, R., Lindemann, G., Kirn, S., Pěchouček, M. (eds.) MATES 2008. LNCS (LNAI), vol. 5244, pp. 183–194. Springer, Heidelberg (2008)
Winikoff, M., Padgham, L., Harland, J., Thangarajah, J.: Declarative & procedural goals in intelligent agent systems. In: Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Principles of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning (KR 2002), Toulouse, France, pp. 470–481 (2002)
Wooldridge, M.: An Introduction to MultiAgent Systems. John Wiley & Sons, Chichester (2002) ISBN 0 47149691X
Zambonelli, F., Jennings, N.R., Wooldridge, M.: Developing multiagent systems: The Gaia methodology. ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology 12(3), 317–370 (2003)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Dam, H.K., Zhang, T., Ghose, A. (2013). Improving the Reactivity of BDI Agent Programs. In: Boella, G., Elkind, E., Savarimuthu, B.T.R., Dignum, F., Purvis, M.K. (eds) PRIMA 2013: Principles and Practice of Multi-Agent Systems. PRIMA 2013. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 8291. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-44927-7_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-44927-7_7
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-44926-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-44927-7
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)