ABSTRACT
A control system is a software system connected to an underlying environment. The environment is the part of the external world with which the control system interacts, and in which the effects of the control system will be observed [Jackson, 1997]. The task of a control system is to ensure that particular functionalities are achieved in the environment. A multi-agent control system is a control system of which the software is a multi-agent
system, i.e. a system that consists of a number of autonomous software components, called agents, that collaborate to achieve a common goal. Examples of multi-agent control systems include manufacturing control systems [Verstraete et al., 2006; Brueckner, 2000], collective robotic systems [Gu and Hu, 2004; Varshavskaya et al., 2004; Bredenfeld et al., 2006], traffic control systems [Wang, 2005; Roozemond, 1999; Dresner and Stone, 2005] and sensor networks [Sinopoli et al., 2003; DeLima et al., 2006].
