Development of Semantic Web-Enabled BDI Multi-Agent Systems Using SEA_ML: An Electronic Bartering Case Study

In agent-oriented software engineering (AOSE), the application of model-driven development (MDD) and the use of domain-specific modeling languages (DSMLs) for Multi-Agent System (MAS) development are quite popular since the implementation of MAS is naturally complex, error-prone, and costly due to the autonomous and proactive properties of the agents. The internal agent behavior and the interaction within the agent organizations become even more complex and hard to implement when the requirements and interactions for the other agent environments such as the Semantic Web are considered. Hence, in this study, we propose a model-driven MAS development methodology which is based on a domain-specific modeling language (called SEA_ML) and covers the whole process of analysis, modeling, code generation and implementation of a MAS working in the Semantic Web according to the well-known Belief-Desire-Intention (BDI) agent principles. The use of new SEA_ML-based MAS development methodology is exemplified with the development of a semantic web-enabled MAS for electronic bartering (E-barter). Achieved results validated the generation and the development-time performance of applying this new MAS development methodology. More than half of the all agents and artifacts needed for fully implementing the E-barter MAS were automatically obtained by just using the generation features of the proposed methodology