AML – The Agent Modeling Language

AML is an agent-specific extension to the widely used UML 2.0. It is designed to support business modeling, requirements specification analysis, and design of software systems based on software agent concepts and principles.

AML is a semi-formal visual modeling language for specifying, modeling and documenting systems that incorporate concepts drawn from Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) theory.

AML model of a multi-agent system

The primary application context of AML is in systems explicitly designed to utilize software MAS concepts. AML could, however, also be applied to other domains such as business systems, social systems, robotics etc.

In general, AML can be used whenever it is suitable or useful to build models that:

• consist of a number of autonomous, concurrent and/or asynchronous (possibly proactive) entities,
• comprise entities that are able to observe and/or interact with their environment,
• make use of complex interactions and aggregated services,
• employ social structures,
• capture mental characteristics of systems and/or their parts.

UML 2.0 as a base

AML is based on the UML 2.0 Superstructure, augmenting it with several new modeling concepts appropriate for capturing the typical features of multi-agent systems.

The main advantages of this approach are:

• reuse of well-defined, well-founded, and commonly used concepts of UML,
• use of existing mechanisms for specifying and extending UML-based languages (metamodel extensions and UML profiles),
• ease of incorporation into existing UML-based CASE tools.

For a comprehensive overview of AML, download the AML Specification (PDF, 2.9 MB), which contains detailed information on the goals, scope, approach and structure of AML.

We also published a volume of the Whitestein Series in Software Agent Technologies and Autonomic Computing dedicated to AML.

Related work

A formal specification of the AML metamodel is available for download. This work by Ján Danč provides a precise and unambiguous description of AML using the Object-Z language, which motivates the use of AML for formally specifying abstract multi-agent systems.

Mailing list

The AML mailing list is the main communication tool for the growing AML community. To subscribe to the AML mailing list, send an e-mail to E-mail address protected from spam bots, enable JavaScript to view with 'subscribe aml-forum' (without the quotes) in the subject or the message body.