Concurrent Architecture for a Multi-agent Platform

A multi-agent system has a high degree of concurrency. Petri nets are a well-established means for the description of concurrent systems. Reference nets are higher level, object-oriented Petri nets. With Renew (REference NEt Workshop), there exists a tool to model and execute reference nets with seamless Java integration. So, reference nets can be used to design executable multi-agent systems while hiding the sometimes annoying details of concurrent implementations in traditional programming languages. The technique is currently used to implement a FIPA-compliant agent platform for multi-agent systems (called CAPA) focused on retaining a maximum level of concurrency in the system.

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