Developing multi-agent system product lines: from requirements to code

Many modern software systems have autonomous, open, context-aware and highly-interactive properties. The agent abstraction with its autonomous and pro-active characteristics and the related discipline of agent-oriented software engineering (AOSE) are promising paradigms to address these types of systems. Even though agents are frequently being adopted, little effort has been directed in AOSE methodologies toward extensive software reuse techniques, which can provide both reduced time-to-market and lower development costs. Multi-agent system product lines (MAS-PLs) are the result of the integration of AOSE with software product lines (SPLs). SPLs bring many reuse benefits to the agent domain through the exploitation of common characteristics among family members. In this context, this paper presents a domain engineering process for developing MAS-PLs. It defines activities and work products, whose purposes include supporting agent variability and providing agent feature traceability, both not addressed by current SPL and AOSE approaches.