Self-organization in multi-agent systems

Abstract

This paper is the synthesis of joint work realised in a technical forum group within the AgentLink III NoE framework, which elaborated on issues concerning self-organization and emergence in multi-agent systems (MAS). The work concluded on a common definition of the concepts of self-organization and emergence in MAS and the associated properties and characteristics. Also it developed towards an approach for selecting self-organization mechanisms using a number of selected reference case studies and a set of evaluation criteria. © 2005, Cambridge University Press.