1. INTELLIGENT AUTOMATION INC. Extending Rational Rose to support MAS design in UML Intelligent Automation Inc. 2 Research Place, Suite 202 Rockville, MD 20850 http://www.i-a-i.com presented by: Renato Levy

2. INTELLIGENT AUTOMATION INC. Outline Introduction to IAI and its software tools Three-tier agent architecture Cybele Design of MAS using DIVA Problems and pitfalls

3. INTELLIGENT AUTOMATION INC. Expertise Multi-agent Systems Design, Development and Simulation Distributed Computing Scheduling and Logistics Agent-based Distributed Control

4. INTELLIGENT AUTOMATION INC. Software tools Cybele  : Agent Infrastructure for distributed computing and inter-agent communication DIVA : A case tool with design document editing, online repository, runtime execution support service, verification and Cybele code generation

5. INTELLIGENT AUTOMATION INC. Three Tier Architecture of IAI Agents 1- Role Layer: 1- Role Layer: Describes the syntax and semantics of the roles this agent can perform in this application. 2- Adapter Objects: 2- Adapter Objects: Makes the necessary translation between domain independent semantic of the role layer to the passive domain object expertise. 3- Domain Layer: 3- Domain Layer: Represents the information content of an agent. Holds the domain expertise of the agent. Layer were existent legacy software can be easily reused.

6. INTELLIGENT AUTOMATION INC. An Example of Role Interaction Dutch Auction Art BuyerEnglish Auction Art BuyerEnglish Auction Car Buyer Buyer Buying Art Adapter Buyer Adapter Buying ArtBuying Car

7. INTELLIGENT AUTOMATION INC. Cybele  : An Agent Infrastructure Provides location independent communication among agents with efficient flexible, dynamic multicasting Provides services for creating, migrating and terminating agents at run time Supports multi-threaded and shared-threaded Provides an activity model where an agent can work on multiple tasks concurrently Emphasis is on high-performance, scalability, flexibility and ease of use Current prototype of Cybele is implemented using the object- oriented paradigm with a Java API

8. INTELLIGENT AUTOMATION INC. Cybele  : Architecture Guidelines Cybele basics: Enforcement of the Activity-oriented programming interfaces or AOPI. Portability of users’ code: User-written agent code runs on any Cybele environment in which the needed services are available Reusability of users’ code: User’s code are re-usable even if services are modified Plug n play service: Encourage vendors to plug whatever service they desire into the Cybele to suite a particular platform Provision for addition of new services: Provide means for agent developers to add and access supplemental services without affecting the reusability and portability

9. INTELLIGENT AUTOMATION INC. Cybele  : Architecture Distributed, Interactive Computing Infrastructure (DICI) Cybele Kernel Supporting Three-tier architecture And AOPI Fundamental Service Layer Supplementary Service Layer Basic Service Layer

10. INTELLIGENT AUTOMATION INC. DIVA A design tool for agent based distributed system Use an extension of UML as means for system description Integrated with the industry leader Rational Rose 98i/2000e Automatic code generation Maximize interaction and protocol reusability Automatically generate verification model from the same design document

11. INTELLIGENT AUTOMATION INC. DIVA and Rose Rose Extensibility Interface (REI) Model Semantics Diagrams Context Menus Properties Add-Ins Add-In Registry Events Stereotype files Property files Menu files Data files Rational Rose Legend Control Data Events Rosescript COM server Stereotypes Icons String Menus Rosescript External program Extensible Properties New tools/tabs New properties Rose Script Code generation Custom dialogs Shell File I/O Web access Environment Add-In COM Client/Server Respond to events Custom Spec Dialog Java Bean /COM Server Logic of Add-In Choice of languages Java Objects Source Files Java Code Promela Code Java-COM Bridge

12. INTELLIGENT AUTOMATION INC. Multi-agent System Design: Entities Physical entities of the System (MODEL) Agents Non-agent entities (such as databases, legacy classes) Protocols Roles

13. INTELLIGENT AUTOMATION INC. Multi-agent System Design: Diagrams Agents X MODEL -> Deployment Diagram Agents X Hosts (distribution) -> Deployment Diagram Agents X non-agent -> Class Diagrams Agents X Protocols -> Class Diagram Protocols X Roles -> Class Diagram

14. INTELLIGENT AUTOMATION INC. Multi-agent System Design: Protocols Protocols are defined as the description of a relation between two or more agents of the system. Any interaction between two agents are subject to a protocol ruling. The agents that play a part on the protocol perform according with the roles described on this protocol. A protocol is described by a class diagram which depicts its roles and by a set of interaction diagrams which show the details of the exchange of information between such roles. In Rational Rose ®, protocols were created using stereotypes.

15. INTELLIGENT AUTOMATION INC. Multi-agent System Design: Agents X Roles In order to play a role on a protocol an agent has to adhere to an interface publicized by the role. The interface required by the roles is automatically extracted by the DIVA case tool. The agent implements the interface by means of delegation to non-agent object that conforms with the interface. (adapter objects)

16. INTELLIGENT AUTOMATION INC. Multi-agent System Design: Role Classes Roles are entities contained by protocols, that define the syntax of a protocol player. Agents can play different roles on different protocols or even more than one role on the same protocol instance

17. INTELLIGENT AUTOMATION INC. Role Design: State Diagram A Role is defined by an enhanced state machine diagram, in which the information about the guard conditions and actions are detailed enough to extract the conversation syntax.

18. INTELLIGENT AUTOMATION INC. Role Reusability The correct extraction of the syntax of a conversation from the semantics and context that they carry is fundamental to provide role reusability across domains.

19. INTELLIGENT AUTOMATION INC. DIVA: Interaction Protocol Verification State Diagrams Of Roles and Sequence Diagrams of Interactions Role and Adaptor Objects in Java Concurrent Processes in PROMELA Script Verified and Re-usable Roles and Protocols RoseScript, Java Bean/COM Server PROMELA Translator SPIN Tool

20. INTELLIGENT AUTOMATION INC. Importing Protocols/Roles DIVA’s repository allows validated protocols and roles to be shared and reused on several domains.

21. INTELLIGENT AUTOMATION INC. Rose and UML pitfalls Rose is rather inconsistent on the way it can be extended by a third-party add-in. A variety of different techniques are needed to interface with Rose in order to accomplish the most simple tasks. (i.e. Rosescript, COM, ActiveX, Java beans, ….) Despite all the methods to interface with Rose there was no way to enhance its graphical output, forcing us to recreate some of the graphics on a separate child window. UML, as implemented in Rose, leaves too much room for free-form notes. In order to describe a complex system with less ambiguity, richer and more formal representation is needed.