Programming Multi-Agent Coordination Using NorJADE Framework

Context: Recently, norms become an important component in multi-agent systems. They represent standards, laws and ethics already used in several fields like sociology, philosophy and economics. Using norms, we can develop more flexible systems because agents can violate norms if the situation requires. Objective: This chapteraims to use norms in order to ensure the coordination between agents. The coordination mechanisms are used to reach collective goals of agents which are the main challenge of multi-agent systems. Method: To reach this goal, we extended NorJADE framework by the required coordination mechanisms. NorJADE framework is an extension of JADE framework to develop normative multi-agent systems. The proposed extensions are made thanks to extending the ontology and implementing aspects to develop the coordination mechanisms. Results: As a result, the developed extension allows implementing collective goals of multi-agent systems. The proposed approach is applied on the development of the conference management system (especially, the dispatching papers phase). This approach provides several advantages like flexibility, maintainability and suitability for open systems.