A compositional framework for the specification of interaction protocols in multiagent organizations

Abstract

This paper addresses the notion of context in multiagent systems from an organisational point of view. Setting out from the RICA metamodel that shapes the agents' space of interaction on the basis of hierarchical organisational and communicative abstractions, we propose Interaction State Machines as a new formalism for the specification and enactment of multiagent interaction protocols. By means of examples from the FIPA interaction protocol library, we show how this formalism allows for a successive refinement of interaction protocols, and how this process is guided by the organisational model underlying a multiagent application.