Preface

The AAMAS conference is the premier international forum for research in autonomous agents and multi-agent systems. Since its first edition in 2002, it has featured a demonstration session where live interactive demos are given. The goal of the AAMAS demonstration session is to give participants, from industry and academia alike, an opportunity to present their latest developments on software and robotic systems.

In 2006, the demonstration track featured 17 demos, followed in 2007 by 11 demos coming primarily from academic (software) contributors, as well as a some research labs and industry.

In the 2008 edition, demonstrations were invited for three different categories: academic software, industrial software, and robotics. Another change we introduced this year is that the winners of the "best demo" awards will be chosen by public vote, and there will separate awards for each of the demo categories. Also, the demonstrations will be presented in a plenary session for the first time this year.

We were delighted to receive an unusually high number of excellent submissions, each one of them attesting to the clear maturity of current Agents technology. Due to space constraints, we have been able to accept only 34 demos from the many strong submissions we received. However, the vast majority of them are still academic, although some with apparent industrial links. In particular, the accepted demos were 23 in the academic software category, 5 in industrial software, and 6 in robotics.

Examples of demo topics of interest included, but were not limited to:

  • Multi-agent software systems
  • Industrial and military applications (including prototypes)
  • Agent-based games
  • Agent platforms and development environments
  • Open-source software tools
  • Robotic systems (single and multi-agent)
  • Virtual agents and interactive virtual environments
  • Simulation environments

This section of the proceedings includes 2-page papers describing each demo presentation at AAMAS'08. Taken together, we believe these articles showcase the amazing recent progress in the area of Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems, and we look forward for a very exciting demo session at AAMAS'08. We hope that these articles will promote discussion and future research, as well as encourage the AAMAS community to get involved in implementing, deploying, and popularising novel Agents technology.

Joelle Pineau (McGill University, Canada) and
Rafael H. Bordini (University of Durham, UK)
Demonstration Chairs, AAMAS'08

 

   
 

 

  
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