The Research Of Agent-Oriented Software Analysis And Design

With the development of distributed computer systems, especially with the large-scale application of its typical example—Internet, Multi-Agent system (MAS) theories have brought prominent values. And the combination of Multi-Agent technology and software engineering has opened up a new way to build the complicated software.Since the autonomy and complicated organizational structure of MAS cannot be described clearly by traditional structured design method and Object-oriented design method, a new design methodology —Agent Oriented methodology is brought. The methodology mainly studies in two Fields. Firstly how to apply the mental state of Agent into depicting the activities , such as perceiving, planning, behavior, coordination, cooperation, etc. Secondly how to analyze and realize Multi-Agent. System. Now the primary problems of Agent-Oriented methodology are:(1) Tools and environments are lacking, which makes the designers can' t build MAS (Multi-Agent System) conveniently.(2) Owing to little relevancy between the theory and the system; developers can't structure the application of Agent clearly.The innovation of this dissertation lies in analyzing outer and internal state of Agent deeply. According to macroscopic sociality and microcosmic mental state of Agent, the Agent-oriented analytical method of Role-BDI is put forward in this dissertation.In this dissertation, such problems have been solved:(1) Agent is regarded as the entity with role's functions. The role has limited the individual' s behaviors. And the relation between the roles has limited the individuals' interaction in the system. Thus the outside view of Agent is confirmed effectively, which is favorable to the setting-up of Agent model on the senior level.(2) We describe the mental state of Agent by BDI model. Definition and realization of modules— Belief, Desire and intention, has been described respectively. It. means that the inner mechanism of Agent isrealized by the decision and reasoning process based on BDI model. In the module of intention, the realization of the decision is strengthened by application of reinforcement learning. So the process from analysis to realization on Agent can be unified. In this way, the activity of Agent can be reduced to atom actions so that Agent-oriented software development can be come true.(3) To the existed problem (1), we have studied JACK -the building instrument of Agent. And on the platform, we actualize the planning of movement —the result of robot' s response to the events.(4) Finally we apply Role-BDI, the Agent-oriented analytical method , into RoboCup — the typical experimental platform of MAS.We think that it i s essential to structure Agent applications cl early. Appropriate definition and clear analysis of the model will help to actualize the effective development of MAS. In this dissertation, the problems about the separation between theory and actual application will mainly be studied.This dissertation is sponsored by student innovation fund of Jiangsu University.