In the last years, multi-agent systems (MAS) have proved more and more successful. The need of a quality software engineering approach to their design arises together with the need of new methodological ways to address important issues such as ontology representation, security concerns and production costs. The introduction of an extensive pattern reuse practice can be determinant in cutting down the time and cost of developing these systems.

The process of designing a multi-agent system (MAS) naturally involves many different concepts. The system should reach some goals and provide specific requirements. The designer should produce an accurate model for the domain ontology, the agents' knowledge and interactions. The structural and behavioral description of the system will descend from these elements and will also generate some constraints in the other parts of the design.

Design patterns already proved successful in lowering the development time and number of errors of object-oriented software; now, they are, candidate to play a similar role in the MAS (multi-agent system) context. In this work we describe our experiences in the identification, production and application of patterns for agents. Some patterns are described together with the classification criteria and documentation approach we adopt. Upon them, we base a pattern reuse process that can be considered one of the distinguishing elements of the design methodology (PASSI) we use to develop MAS. Patterns can be applied to an existing agent or used to produce a new one with the support of a specific web based application that can read both the JAVA source code and XMI representation of the agent design documentation. After the successful application of the desired pattern(s), the source code and the design diagrams (usually a structural and dynamic diagram) of the agent can be exported. Some experimental results are reported in order to demonstrate the utility of this approach in automatically producing an interesting percentage of code lines.

In the last years, multi-agent systems (MAS) have proved more and more successful. The need of a quality software engineering approach to their design arises together with the request of new tools that could support a quick, affordable and costprofitably development process. In this work we

Abstract. The paper describes CiceRobot, a robot based on a cognitive architecture for robot vision and action. The aim of the architecture is to integrate visual perception and actions with knowledge representation, in order to let the robot to generate a deep inner understanding of its environment. The principled integration of perception, action and of symbolic knowledge is based on the introduction of an intermediate representation based on Gärdenfors conceptual spaces. The architecture has been tested on a RWI B21 autonomous robot on tasks related with guided tours in the Archaeological Museum of Agrigento. Experimental results are presented.

Abstract — We describe a novel intelligent execution monitoring approach for mobile robots acting in indoor environments such as offices and houses. Traditionally, monitoring execution in mobile robotics amounted to looking for discrepancies between the model-based predicted state of executing an action and the real world state as computed from sensing data. We propose to employ semantic knowledge as a source of information to monitor execution. The key idea is to compute implicit expectations, from semantic domain information, that can be observed at run time by the robot to make sure actions are executed correctly. We present the semantic knowledge representation formalism, and how semantic knowledge is used in monitoring. We also describe experiments run in an indoor environment using a real mobile robot. I.

Starting from the point that several design methodologies have been conceived to design multi-agent systems and nonetheless designers often prefer to create a new methodology instead of studying and applying the existing ones, we propose an extension to agents of the method engineering process that has been successfully used in the object-oriented context to easily compose new design process. The work reports a detailed production process that allows the composition of new methodologies by reusing parts of existing ones.

In the last years the increasing attention on multi-agent systems (MAS) emphasized the need of a quality software engineering approach to their design and realization. In this paper we propose a comprehensive approach for the development of MAS oriented applications that uses a complete design methodology addressing important issues such as ontology representation, agent collaboration and patterns reuse. The PASSI (Process for Agent Societies Specification and Implementation) design methodology is supported by a specific design tool, granting a great number of automatisms during the design, and a pattern repository for the reuse practice; these are determinant in cutting down the time and cost for developing these systems. During the description of PASSI and its supporting tools, we refer to the most diffused standard for agents (FIPA - Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents) and modeling languages (UML and AUML). We will complete our discussion with some examples of the functionalities offered by these tools.

A specific ontology is proposed in the scope of the development of a platform devoted to exchanges between academics and industrials of the robotic domain. This paper presents the tools used for knowledge elicitation, the concepts and properties linked with control architecture, the use of the resulting ontology for description of some scenarios and the tracks for the development of a domain specific language grounded on the ontology. Knowledge elicitation is performed in web ontology language thanks to Protégé ontology editor. The ontology is structured as a set of modules organized around a kernel. Modules addressing systems, information, robot and mission include concepts and properties for control architecture description. The expressivity of the ontology is demonstrated describing architectures for a set of scenarios; urban robotic scenario, air-ground scenario, landmark search scenario and military unmanned aerial vehicles scenario. Finally some tracks for the use of the ontology for developing a domain specific language are given.

This paper presents our approach to using semantic technologies to describe robot embodiments. We introduce a prototype implementation of RoboDB, a robot database based on semantic web technologies with the functionality necessary to store meaningful information about the robot’s body structure. We present a heuristic evaluation of the user interface to the system, and discuss the possibilities of using the semantic information gathered in the database for applications like building a robot ontology, and the development of robot middleware systems.