The study of multi-agent systems (MAS) focuses on systems in which many intelligent agents interact with each other. These agents are considered to be autonomous entities such as software programs or robots. Their interactions can either be cooperative (for example as in an ant colony) or selfish (as in a free market economy). This book assumes only basic knowledge of algorithms and discrete maths, both of which are taught as standard in the first or second year of computer science degree programmes. A basic knowledge of artificial intelligence would useful to help understand some of the issues, but is not essential. The book’s main aims are: To introduce the student to the concept of agents and multi-agent systems, and the main applications for which they are appropriate To introduce the main issues surrounding the design of intelligent agents To introduce the main issues surrounding the design of a multi-agent society To introduce a number of typical applications for agent technology After reading the book the student should understand: The notion of an agent, how agents are distinct from other software paradigms (e.g. objects) and the characteristics of applications that lend themselves to agent-oriented software The key issues associated with constructing agents capable of intelligent autonomous action and the main approaches taken to developing such agents The key issues in designing societies of agents that can effectively cooperate in order to solve problems, including an understanding of the key types of multi-agent interactions possible in such systems The main application areas of agent-based systems

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Environments for Multiagent Systems, E4MAS 2005, held in Utrecht, The Netherlands, in July 2005, as an associated event of AAMAS 2005. The 16 revised papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from the lectures given at the workshop completed by a number of invited papers of prominent researchers active in the domain. The papers are organized in topical sections on models, architecture, and design, mediated coordination, as well as applications.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-workshop proceedings of the 4th International Workshop on Environments for Multiagent Systems, E4MAS 2014 - 10 years later, held in Paris, France, in May 2014 as an associated event of AAMAS 2014, the 13th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems. The 6 revised full papers presented together with 1 roadmap paper and 7 invited papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 14 initial submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on connecting agents, environments, and humans; environments for complex and stigmergic systems; virtual and simulated environments; and open agent environments and interoperability.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-proceedings of the Third International Workshop on Environments for Multiagent Systems, E4MAS 2006, held in Hakodate, Japan in May 2006 as an associated event of AAMAS 2006, the 5th International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems. The 15 revised papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from the lectures given at the workshop completed by a number of invited papers of prominent researchers active in the domain. The papers are organized in topical sections on models, architecture, and design, mediated inte.

Advances in networking technology have revitalized the investigation of agent technologyasapromisingparadigmforengineeringcomplexdistributedsoftware systems. Agent technology has been applied to a wide range of application - mains, including e-commerce, human-computer interfaces, telecommunications, and software assistants. Multi-agent systems (MASs) and their underlying t- ories provide a more natural support for ensuring important properties such as autonomy, mobility, environment heterogeneity, organization, openness, and intelligence. As a consequence, agent-based systems are likely to provide new - proaches to dealing with the complexity of developing and maintaining modern software. However, developing robust large-scale agent-based systems will - quire new software engineering approaches. There are currently many methods and techniques for working with individual agents or with systems built using only a few agents. Unfortunately, agent-based software engineering is still in its infancy and existing software engineering approaches are unable to cope with large MASs. The complexity associated with a large MAS is considerable. When a huge number of agents interact over heterogeneous environments, various phenomena occur which are not as easy to capture as when only a few agents are working together. As the multiple software agents are highly collaborative and operate in networked environments, they have to be context-aware and deal with - vironment uncertainty. This makes their coordination and management more di?cult and increases the likelihood of exceptional situations, such as security holes, privacy violations, and unexpected global e?ects. Moreover, as users and softwareengineersdelegatemoreautonomytotheirMASs,andputmoretrustin their results, new concerns arise in real-life applications.

The main concepts and techniques of multi-agent oriented programming, which supports the multi-agent systems paradigm at the programming level. A multi-agent system is an organized ensemble of autonomous, intelligent, goal-oriented entities called agents, communicating with each other and interacting within an environment. This book introduces the main concepts and techniques of multi-agent oriented programming, (MAOP) which supports the multi-agent systems paradigm at the programming level. MAOP provides a structured approach based on three integrated dimensions, which the book examines in detail: the agent dimension, used to design the individual (interacting) entities; the environment dimension, which allows the development of shared resources and connections to the real world; and the organization dimension, which structures the interactions among the autonomous agents and the shared environment.

Multi-agent systems are claimed to be especially suited to the development of software systems that are decentralized, can deal flexibly with dynamic conditions, and are open to system components that come and go. This is why they are used in domains such as manufacturing control, automated vehicles, and e-commerce markets. Danny Weyns' book is organized according to the postulate that "developing multi-agent systems is 95% software engineering and 5% multi-agent systems theory." He presents a software engineering approach for multi-agent systems that is heavily based on software architecture - with, for example, tailored patterns such as "situated agent", "virtual environment", and "selective perception" - and on middleware for distributed coordination – with programming abstractions such as "views" and "roles." Next he shows the feasibility and applicability of this approach with the development of an automated transportation system consisting of a number of automatic guided vehicles transporting loads in an industrial setting. Weyns puts the development of multi-agent systems into a larger perspective with traditional software engineering approaches. With this, he opens up opportunities to exploit the body of knowledge developed in the multi-agent systems community to tackle some of the difficult challenges of modern-day software systems, such as decentralized control, location-awareness, self-adaption, and large-scale. Thus his book is of interest for both researchers and industrial software engineers who develop applications in areas such as distributed control systems and mobile applications where such requirements are of crucial importance.