Dynamic Software Adaptation with Dependence Analysis for Multi-Agent Platform

Abstract

Modern software system is required to be flexible and adaptable to deal with dynamic environment. To address this new requirement, meta-level architecture description-based dynamic software adaptation has been proposed, which refers to the software system changing its structure and behavior at runtime without user intervention. In this paper we propose an approach for multi-agent system offering dynamic agent adaptation by runtime reconfiguration. The proposed runtime agent adaptation process employs the matrix-based dependence analysis model to check if the performance requirement is satisfied by the reconfiguration. It will thus simplify the development, deployment, and maintenance of the system using the adaptation facilities. An agent platform employing the proposed approach has been implemented, which complies with the FIPA specification.