Improving multi-agent architectural design

Agents provide developers with a flexible way to structure systems around autonomous, communicating elements. To support the efficient development of such systems, design techniques need to be introduced. In this context, we propose an extension of the UML 2.0 metamodel to support agency features and UML-based diagrams which can be used to capture four views of multi-agent systems architecture (Architectural, Intentional, Environmental and Communication). The approach also provides heuristics to guide the description of multi-agent systems according to the proposed diagrams in the context of the Tropos framework. To illustrate the approach we present an Electronic Newspaper example.