A Top Down Approach for MAS Protocol Descriptions

Abstract

When the protocol of a complex Multi-Agent System (MAS) needs to be developed, the top-down approach emphasises to start with abstract descriptions that should be refined incrementally until we achieve the detail leve! necessary to implement it. Unfortunately, there exist a semantic gap in protocol description methodologies because most of them first identify which tasks have to be performed, and then use low leve! descriptions such as sequences of messages to detail them. In this paper, we propase an approach to bridge this gap. We model MAS protocols using severa! abstract views of the tasks to be performed, and provide a systematic method to simplify them. Tasks are represented by means of interactions that may be refined into lower-level inter actions with the techniques proposed in this paper (simpler interactions are easier to describe and implement using mes sage passing.) Unfortunately, deadlocks may appear due to protocol design mistakes or due to the refinement process. Thus, we also propose an algorithm to ensure that protocols are deadlock free