A key weakness of agent frameworks is the difficulty of specifying and controlling the global (emergent) behavior of the Multi-Agent System (MAS) in which they operate. The spatial computing language Proto, however, compiles descriptions of global behavior into local behaviors that interact to produce the specified emergent behavior. In this paper, we show how Proto can be used as a tool for construction of multi-agent systems, allowing the MAS designer to express the global behavior, while still creating a distributed solution. We compare and contrast Proto's functionality to that of existing agent frameworks, showing how Proto is a good candidate for the agent community's first viable agent framework for  societies  of agents.
['Kyle Usbeck', 'Jacob Beal']
An agent framework for agent societies