Open Issues in Open MAS: An abstract architecture proposal.

One of the major challenges in the multi-agent systems field is to build systems capable of taking decisions in an autonomous and flexible way, and to cooperate with other systems inside a virtual organization. If this virtual organization is to be applied successfully to real-world problems, it needs to be flexible enough to cope with the openness of many domains. In particular, a variety of problems need to be addressed such as: large-scale a priori distribution, constant evolution of the environment, admission and departure of members, management and adaptation of the organizational structure, requirements and limitations imposed by the (mobile) devices that support (part of) the execution of the virtual organization and its members, etc. This paper identifies and analyses open research issues that need to be addressed to develop truly open multi-agent systems based on virtual organizations, through the analysis of a real-world case study. Moreover, it puts forward an abstract architecture proposal aimed at integrating methods and techniques in order to address these challenges