An extension of UML by protocols for multi-agent interaction

Recently, a cooperation has been established between the foundation of intelligent physical agents (FIPA) and the object management group aiming to increase acceptance of agent technology in industry by relating to de facto standards (object-oriented software development) and supporting the development environment throughout the full system life cycle. As a first result of this cooperation, Bauer (1999) proposed agent UML, an extension of the unified modeling language (UML), a de facto standard for object-oriented analysis and design. In this paper, we describe the heart of agent UML, i.e., mechanisms to model protocols for multi-agent interaction. Particular UML extensions described in this paper include protocol diagrams, agent roles, multi-threaded lifelines, extended UML message semantics, nested and interleaved protocols, and protocol templates.