Formalizing the Development of Agent-Based Systems Using Graph Processes.
Ralph Depke, Reiko Heckel · 2000
Graph processes are used in order to formalize the relation between global requirement specifications of multi-agent systems by means of message sequence charts, and implementation oriented design models where graph transformation rules specify the agent's operations. 1 Introduction A multi-agent system can be described as a network of autonomous, reactive entities (agents) which act and interact concurrently by accessing shared resources (objects) and by exchanging messages. In this process, the network may by reconfigured by creating and deleting objects, agents, and links. As a network of agents and objects is most naturally represented as a graph, graph transformation provides a convenient model for concurrent computations in a multi-agent system, where the agent's autonomous operations are specified by graph transformation rules [2, 3]. In particular, the graph matching mechanism implicit in a rule application allows to specify the activation of agents by situation patterns t...