Software Architectures and Multiagent Systems
Jean-Paul Arcangeli, Victor Noël, Frédéric Migeon · 2014
This chapter presents the basic concepts of Multiagent systems (MAS), and then positions them as a software architecture style that essentially concerns the “component and connector” category of views. It presents the MAS paradigm and the main concepts of the field, as well as a state of the art on agent-based software engineering. The chapter analyzes architectural style of the MAS, and summarizes advantages and drawbacks of the MAS architectural style. It deals with the existence and the nature of an architectural gap between the design and the implementation of MAS, leading to development difficulties and a loss of quality in software products. The chapter presents outline of a solution, in response to this problem. It finally shows how to fill this architectural gap by defining two architectural views (macro and microlevel) and by relying on a software component model for realization.