Towards Ontology-Based Multiagent Simulations: The Plasma Approach

Abstract

In multiagent-based simulation systems the agent programming paradigm is adopted for simulation. This simulation approach offers the promise to facilitate the design and development of complex simulations, both regarding the distinct simulation actors and the simulation environment itself. We introduce the simulation middleware PlaSMA which extends the JADE agent framework with a simulation control that ensures synchronization and provides a world model based on a formal ontological description of the respective application domain. We illustrate the benefits of an ontology grounding for simulation design and discuss further gains to be expected from recent advances in ontology engineering, namely the adaption of foundational ontologies and modelling-patterns.