Tech Reports

ULCS-07-007

A Common Basis for Agent Organisations in BDI Languages

Anthony Hepple, Louise Dennis, and Michael Fisher

Abstract

Programming languages based on the BDI style of agent model are now common. Within these there appears to be some, limited, agreement on the core functionality of agents. However, when we come to multi-agent organisations, not only do many BDI languages have no speci?c organisational structures, but those that do exist are very diverse. In this paper, we aim to provide a unifying framework for the core aspects of agent organisation, covering groups, teams and roles, as well as organisations. Thus, we describe a simple organisational mechanism, and show how several well-known approaches can be embedded within it. Although the mechanism we use is derived from the METATEM language, we do not assume any speci?c BDI programming language. The organisational mechanism is thus intended to be independent of the underlying agent language and so provides a common core for future developments in agent organisation.

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