PASSI (a Process for Agent Societies Specification and Implementation) is a step-by-step requirement-to-code methodology for designing and developing multi-agent societies integrating design models and concepts from both OO software engineering and artificial intelligence approaches using the UML notation. The models and phases of PASSI encompass anthropomorphic representation of system requirements, social viewpoint, solution architecture, code production and reuse, and deployment configuration supporting mobility of agents. The design process with PASSI is supported by PTK (PASSI ToolKit) which is composed by an add-in for Rational Rose and a tool for reusing patterns of agents.
PASSI is made up of five models (see Figure 1) concerning different design levels, and twelve steps in the process of building multi-agent systems. In PASSI we have adopted UML as the modeling language since it is widely accepted both in the academic and industrial environments. Its extension mechanisms (constraints, tagged values and stereotypes) helps in customizing the representations of agent-oriented designs so as to avoid the adoption of a totally new modeling language.
Click here for a description of the phases and steps of the methodology.
