Research and development challenges for agent-based systems

The increasing sophistication of today´s information era poses certain challenges to traditional information technology (IT) systems. Agent-based software technology is rapidly evolving to meet the demands of this new information era. However, before agent-based solutions can be routinely and successfully exploited in real-world problems, certain fundamental research and software engineering issues have to be addressed. Some of the key challenges for the research and development of agent-based software systems are discussed. Our discussion is carried out from the twin viewpoints of fundamental research questions and software engineering issues