Towards a set of Measures for Evaluating Software Agent Autonomy

Abstract

Abstract-Agent-oriented software is an established research field. For this reason, it is important to develop comprehensive measures of excellence to evaluate this software. No set of measures defining the overall quality of an agent has been developed to date. Some attempts at evaluating agent quality have addressed certain agent features, like the development process. We believe that agent quality can be determined as a function of well-defined characteristics. Evaluated using appropriate measures, these characteristics will assure an agent's reliability and correct functionality. This paper deals with an important agent feature, namely, autonomy. Autonomy is considered to be the agent's ability to operate independently, without the need for human guidance or the intervention of external elements. The article proposes a set of measures used to evaluate the autonomy of a agent and presents a case study analysing the behaviour of these measures.

Complexity Measurement of Multi-Agent Systems

“…This step should be followed by the proposition of metrics in order to measure, objectively, the complexity of the developed MAS. According to Alonso et al [13], the measurement of metrics in MAS field is closely dependent on the implementation paradigm used to develop this system. Because the MAS can be implemented using various software paradigms (object-oriented paradigm, knowledge-base systems, etc), it seems hard difficult to propose adequate metrics for all these software paradigms.…”

Measures for Testing the Reactivity Property of a Software Agent

“…[7] [10] Agent autonomy is a characteristic that is interpreted as freedom from external intervention, oversight, or control. Autonomous agents are agents that are able to work on behalf of their user without the need for any external guidance.…”

“…Measuring software quality of an agent depends upon the ability to describe the agent characteristics such as autonomy, reactivity, proactiveness and collaboration. A set of measures for evaluating the software agent's autonomy [6] [9], pro-activity [7], socialability [8] [9], has been dealt in the literature. In this paper, a set of measures for evaluating the software agent's reactivity property, considering its associated attributes has been proposed.…”

Measuring the Pro-Activity of Software Agents

“…As regards the characteristic of software agent proactivity, we propose, based on our experience with software agents [5], [6] and the existing research [7], [14], that it should be identified by three attributes:…”

“…Early results measuring software agent social ability and autonomy characteristics were presented in [5], and [6], respectively. This paper presents a set of measures for evaluating a software agent's pro-activity, considering its associated attributes.…”