Reference:International Joint AgentsWorkshop and Symposium (IJAWS’15), Kaga, Japan, 30 Sep 2015 - 02 Oct 2015. Editors: Bai Q, Ren F, Fujita K, Zhang M, Ito T. Studies in Computational Intelligence: Multi-agent and Complex Systems. Springer, Singapore. 670: 165-179. 2017
Coalition formation is a fundamental question in multiagent systems. The question asks for an optimal way in which agents may form coalitions and cooperate to accomplish a task. In this paper we investigate the use of coalition formation in software architecture design. We investigate a multiagent framework for attribute-driven software architecture design process. We design an agent for each requirement; the agents form coalitions that represent software components. The coalition formation process is based on decomposition game, a variant of coalition game. We extend previous work by adopting the propose-select-adjust framework for computing solutions of decomposition games. The focus is on analysing efficiency and utility of this agent-based approach. We also present three real-world case studies demonstrating the use of this approach to support software architecture design.