Operational profile development methodology for normative multi-agent systems

Abstract

Software reliability refers to the ability of a system to perform its intended function under specified conditions for a specified period of time. The first critical step in the software reliability testing process is to create a Software Operational Profile (SOP). Several methodologies for creating SOP have been proposed. Nonetheless, nearly all the proposed studies have neglected the uniqueness of the new software paradigms, despite the fact that these are generally distinguished by their own concepts and methodologies. One of these software paradigms is multi-agent systems. Rather than using a generic one, it would be more useful to propose a specific methodology for creating SOP. In this paper, we propose a methodology for developing Operational Profile for specific kinds of multi-agent systems (so-called normative multi-agent systems). A detailed case study is used to demonstrate this methodology.