Proposition of formal semantics for multi-agent systems

This paper has two purposes. First, it presents an approach to designing an agent that is different from most known in the DAI field. Starting from our study of cooperation in multi-agent systems, we identify the underlying concepts of an agent. These concepts consist of communication concepts and organization concepts. The second and more important objective of this paper is to show the application of labeled transition systems to deal with the behavioural semantics of a multi-agent system. An agent state is described by a triplet including beliefs, goals as communication concepts and roles as organization concepts. A transition consists of an execution step in the life-cycle of an agent.