Agent organisations: from independent agents to virtual organisations and societies of agents

Abstract

Real world applications using agent-based solutions can include many agents that needs to communicate and interact with each other in order to meet their objectives. In organisations; Agent open multi-agent systems, problems can include not only the organisation of a large number of agents, but can also be heterogeneous and of unpredictable provenance or behavior. An overview of the alternatives for dealing with these problems is presented, highlighting the way they try to solve or mitigate them. This approach allows the development of complex systems in which there are agents that show very different behaviours and that are able to adapt to unforeseen changes in the environment. This makes it possible to simulate socio-technical or natural environments and observe their possible evolution without the ethical considerations involved in experimenting in real environments.