Architecture description language based on object-oriented Petri nets for multi-agent systems

Multi-agent systems are studied from the software architecture point of view. As traditional architecture description languages (ADLs) are difficult to describe the semantics of multi-agent systems, a novel architecture description language for multi-agent systems (ADLMAS) rooted in BDI model is proposed, which adopts object-oriented Petri nets presented in this paper as a formal theory basis. ADLMAS can visually and intuitively depict a formal framework for multi-agent system from the agent level and society level, describe the static and dynamic semantics, and analyze the dynamic behaviors of multi-agent systems and interactions among agents with formal methods. Moreover, ADLMAS is very suitable for representing concurrent, distributed and synchronous multi-agent systems. Finally, to illustrate the favorable representation capability of ADLMAS, an example of multi-agent systems in electronic marketplace is provided.