Developing Industrial Multi-Agent Systems †

problem solving and to interact with other community members. The interactions typically involve agents cooperating and communicating with one another in order to enhance their individual problem solving and to better solve the overall application problem. Each agent consists of an ARCHON Layer (AL) and an application program (known as an Intelligent System (IS)). Purpose-built ISs can make use of the ARCHON functionality to enhance their problem solving and to improve their robustness. However pre-existing ISs can also be incorporated, with a little adaptation, and can experience similar benefits (Jen-nings et al., 1993). This latter point is important because in many cases developing the entire application afresh would be considered too expensive or too large a change away from proven technology (Jennings and Wittig, 1992). To successfully incorporate both purpose-built and pre-existing systems, community design must be carried out from two different perspectives simultaneously. A top down approach is needed to look at the overall needs of the application and a bottom up approach is needed to look at the capabilities of the existing systems. Once the gap between what is required and what is available has been identified, the system designer can choose to provide the additional functionality through new systems, through additions to the existing systems, or through the ARCHON software itself. This methodology, which is described more thoroughly in Varga et al. (1994), shapes the design process by providing guidelines for problem decomposition and distribution which reduce inefficiencies. This paper is organised along the following lines: section two provides an overview of the ARCHON architecture. Section three describes the Iberdrola application-it involves seven heterogeneous agents, a substantial number of which were purpose built, which perform three main types of activity (data acquisition, fault diagnosis, and service restoration) and cooperate in a number of different styles. Finally, section four highlights some key experiences which impact upon the design and implementation of future DAI systems. The ARCHON software has been used to integrate a wide variety of application program types under the general assumption that the ensuing agents will be loosely coupled and semi-autonomous. The ISs themselves can be heterogeneous in terms of their programming language, their 1. Iberdrola is a large Spanish electric utility. Their transport network , on which this application operates, is controlled by the North Dispatch Control Room (DCR) located in Bilbao. Abstract The development and deployment of multi-agent systems in real world settings raises …