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Modelling the Structure and Behaviour of Petri Net Agents

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Applications and Theory of Petri Nets 2001 (ICATPN 2001)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 2075))

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Abstract

This work proposes a way to model the structure and behaviour of agents in terms of executable coloured Petri net protocols. Structure and behaviour are not all aspects of agent based computing: agents need a world to live in (mostly divided into platforms), they need a general structure (e.g. including a standard interface for communication) and their own special behaviour. Our approach tackles all three parts in terms of Petri nets. This paper skips the topic of agent platforms and handles the agent structure briefly to introduce a key concept of our work: the graphical modelling of the behaviour of autonomous and adaptive agents.

A special kind of coloured Petri nets is being used throughout the work: reference nets. Complex agent behaviour is achieved via dynamic composition of simpler sub-protocols, a task that reference nets are especially well suited for. The inherent concurrency of Petri nets is another point that makes it easy to model agents: multiple threads of control are (nearly) automatically implied in Petri nets.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Computer Science Department Theoretical Foundations of Computer Science, University of Hamburg, Vogt-Kölln-Straße 30, 22527, Hamburg

    Michael Köhler, Daniel Moldt & Heiko Rölke

Authors
  1. Michael Köhler
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  2. Daniel Moldt
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  3. Heiko Rölke
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Informática e Ingeniería de Sistemas Centro Politécnico Superior, Universidad de Zaragoza, María de Luna, 3, 50015, Zaragoza, Spain

    José-Manuel Colom

  2. Department of Computing Science, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, UK

    Maciej Koutny

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© 2001 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Köhler, M., Moldt, D., Rölke, H. (2001). Modelling the Structure and Behaviour of Petri Net Agents. In: Colom, JM., Koutny, M. (eds) Applications and Theory of Petri Nets 2001. ICATPN 2001. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 2075. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-45740-2_14

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-45740-2_14

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-42252-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-45740-4

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