Foto del docente

Alessandro Ricci

Associate Professor

Department of Computer Science and Engineering

Academic discipline: ING-INF/05 Information Processing Systems

Research

The backbone of the research activity concerns agents and Multi-Agent Systems as a  paradigm for computer programming and the engineering of  software systems. This activity is articulated along three main topics:
- agent-oriented computational models, languages and technologies for computer programming and software engineering
- coordination models, languages and infrastructures for multi-agent system coordination
- application of previous models and technologies to the development of SOA (Service-Oriented Architecture) systems based on Web Services, smart mobile applications, autonomic systems exhibiting self-* properties.

Aside to this main line, part of the research activity is devoted to agent-based modelling and simulation, i.e. the investigation of agents and multi-agent systems as an approach for modelling and simulating complex systems.



The background context of the research activity concerns the investigation of high-level programming paradigms for the design and development of concurrent/distributed/decentralized software systems, featuring some degree of reactiveness, autonomy, adaptivity. To this end, the research activity is focussed on agents and multi-agent systems, and in particular on agent-oriented programming, as a novel general-purpose programming paradigm for developing software systems.  The objective of the activity is the definition  of agent-oriented programming languages and related technologies (platforms, infrastructures, tools),  to be applied for the engineering of concurrent/distributed applications in relevant ICT domains.

Other ongoing related activities include:

- High-level environment-based coordination models and infrastructures for multi-agent systems, in particular for systems of cognitive software agents based on the BDI (Belief-Desire-Intention) model.

- Models, theories and frameworks about the intelligent use of the environments by cognitive software agents based on the BDI model.