In computer science, a multi-agent system (MAS) is a system composed of several agents, capable of mutual interaction. The interaction can be in the form of message passing or producing changes in their common environment. The agents can be autonomous entities, such as software agents or robots. MAS can include human agents as well. Human organizations and society in general can be considered an example of a multi-agent system.

Multi-agent systems can manifest self-organization and complex behaviors even when the individual strategies of all their agents are simple.

Topics of research in MAS include:

1. beliefs, desires, and intentions (BDI ),
2. cooperation and coordination,
3. communication,
4. distributed problem solving,
5. multi-agent learning.

To share knowledge agents can use Knowledge Query Manipulation Language - KQML.

Multi-agent system Projects

Cognitive Agent Architecture (Cougaar)

Cougaar is a Java-based architecture for the construction of large-scale distributed agent-based applications. It is the product of a multi-year DARPA research project into large scale agent systems and includes not only the core architecture but also a variety of demonstration, visualization and management components to simplify the development of complex, distributed applications. Source: Cougaar Project

See also

Software agent, Artificial intelligence, Complex systems, Distributed artificial intelligence, Evolutionary computation, Human-based genetic algorithm, Self-organization, KQML, GNUBrain (Implemetation of a multi agent framework (GPL))

External links

• The Multi-Agent Systems Lab at U. Mass.
• Teamcore Research Group at USC.
• Agent technology Roadmap.
• MultiAgent systems.
• Java-based Multi-Agent Systems
• UMBC Agent News. (It seems that this site is not updated since 2003)