Interaction Protocols

Multiagent systems are conceptually decentralized: each agent is a locus of control and agents interact with each other via arms- length communication. This makes the study and design of interaction protocols a central concern in multiagent systems research. This chapter introduces the idea of an interaction protocol along with a discussion of the two kinds of protocols that have been been most studied, messaging protocols and meaning-based protocols. Whereas messaging protocols capture oeprational constraints on messaging, meaning-based protocols specify what the messages mean in terms of the social state. We discuss AUML and BSPL as alternative ways of specifying messaging protocols and dwell at length on commitment protocols as an exemplar of meaning-based protocols. We also discuss the properties of these protocols and their verification.