Modeling Petri Net-Based Multi-Agent Applications

Petri net-based agent-oriented software engineering (Paose) is an approach for the development of distributed and concurrent systems on the basis of Petri nets, following the agent-oriented paradigm. It aims at the construction of multi-agent application based on the reference model Mulan (Multi-Agent Nets, volume 2 of the Agent Technology series). Renew (the Reference Net Workshop) offers the implementation language (reference nets - an object net formalism, volume 1 of the Agent Technology series) and the underlying IDE as well as the execution engine (VM) for the development and execution of these systems. This book presents the modeling techniques of the Paose approach, a set of supporting tools and a description of the underlying development processes. In these matters, Paose addresses three areas of computer science. These are (1) software engineering, which offers UML and agile processes, (2) agent technologies, from which structuring and encapsulation result and (3) Petri net theory, which contributes process-awareness, concurrency, semantics of models and fundamental concepts to the approach. All presented modeling techniques are supported by tools, which are available as plugins within the extensible Renew framework (volume 4 of the Agent Technology series). More information on the reference nets formalism, Renew, Mulan and Paose can be found on http: //www.renew.de/ and http: //www.paose.net/.