Concurrency Model of BDI Programming Frameworks: Why Should We Control It?
Martina Baiardi, Samuele Burattini, Giovanni Ciatto, Danilo Pianini, Andrea Omicini, Alessandro Ricci
TL;DR
The paper tackles the problem of choosing suitable concurrency models for BDI programming frameworks, highlighting that existing tools show heterogeneous and often inflexible concurrency support. It proposes a taxonomy of external concurrency models mapping MAS control loops to threads, processes, event loops, and executors, and evaluates several open-source BDI technologies via benchmarks and code analysis. Findings reveal varied levels of support and customization across frameworks, underscoring the need for configurable concurrency and late binding between MAS specification and runtime model. The contributions offer design guidance for developers and researchers to balance determinism, reproducibility, and performance in MAS deployments.
Abstract
We provide a taxonomy of concurrency models for BDI frameworks, elicited by analysing state-of-the-art technologies, and aimed at helping both BDI designers and developers in making informed decisions. Comparison among BDI technologies w.r.t. concurrency models reveals heterogeneous support, and low customisability.