Enhancing UML to Formalize the FIPA Agent Interaction Protocol

The FIPA Contract Net Interaction Protocol cannot be described properly with UML 2.1 Sequence Diagrams. The ability to multicast messages is an important feature that is lacking. We show how minor enhancements of UML will make it more suited to express agent protocols. We also explain why the earlier enhancements proposed by the Agent UML are not quite satisfactory. We show how the protocol exceptions can be defined. Finally a formal semantics is given to the enhancements.

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