NorJADE: An Open Source JADE-Based Framework for Programming Normative Multi-Agent Systems

Normative multi-agent systems are multi-agent systems where agents are governed by norms. This recent research domain is now in full expansion. Despite the progress made in this area, various challenges remain the subject of research studies. In particular, there is a need for innovative solutions to support the implementation of this kind of multi-agent systems in order to improve the development process and consequently to simplify the developers' task. In the literature, most proposed works in this area are either closely related to specific problems or require complicated theoretical frameworks. In this article, a new framework baptized NorJADE is proposed to support the implementation of normative multi-agent systems. The proposed framework is open source, simple, modular and extensible. It is based on the popular open source JADE platform and uses the two well-known software technologies: ontology and aspect-oriented programming. The framework and the associated tool are illustrated using a concrete case study.