On the design of agent-based systems using UML and extensions

Abstract

The Unified Software Development Process (USDP) and Unified Modeling Language (UML) have been now generally accepted as the standard methodology and modeling language for developing object-oriented systems. Although agent-based systems introduce new issues, we consider that USDP and UML can be used in an extended manner for modeling agent-based systems. We present a methodology for designing agent-based systems and the specific models expressed in the UML-based notation corresponding to each phase of the software development process. UML was extended using the provided mechanism: stereotypes. Therefore, this approach can be managed with any CASE tool supporting UML. A case study, the development of a specific agent-based student assessment system (SAS), is presented.