SPADE Norms: a Distributed General Framework for Normative Multi-agent Systems

In this paper, we present SPADE Norms, an extension of the SPADE platform designed specifically for the design of normative multi-agent systems. SPADE Norms facilitates the integral management of norms, covering life-cycle monitoring, definition of activation conditions, verification of compliance with norms, application of sanctions and rewards, and offers tools to develop normative reasoning processes adapted to the agent that allow it to decide on compliance with the norms according to its objectives. The overall norms management process is decoupled from the agent and is performed internally in the platform itself. This makes SPADE Norms a versatile platform capable of adapting to different agent types and application domains. Our approach also supports the definition of roles and domains, which increases performance and enables a variety of agent behaviours and organisational simulations.