IT-Introduction

In the proceedings of ICMAS2000, one of the antecedents of AAMAS, its preface said that there was a time when the preface for a conference on multiagent systems, would require a definition of that term and a justification for why such systems are important to study but times have certainly changed. Now this is not restricted to research communities. For example, many people use their proxy agents in internet auctions. The concept of coordination and collaboration is a key factor to tackle the various problems in a networked society which exists in the distributed, large, open and heterogeneous environments. We are required to develop both analytic and synthetic approaches to put agent technologies to work in human society.

The AAMAS industry track is a special track at the AAMAS conference that runs in parallel with the regular AAMAS scientific track. The track is dedicated to fostering commercial or real world, impact for agent technologies. The track features presentations, panels, and invited talks from industrial participants, giving them an opportunity to showcase the state of the art in agent technology. The industry track aims to foster mutually beneficial links between those engaged in foundational scientific research and those working to make autonomous agents andmultiagent systems a commercial reality.

The first industry track was held at AAMAS05 in Utrecht, the Netherlands and the second was held at AAMAS06 in Hakodate, Japan. This year's track follows on these successful industry tracks. The AAMAS06 track featured 15 high quality papers, an invited talk by Steve Benfield of Agentis Software, and a panel chaired by Brad Clement of NASA JPL. The AAMAS06 papers discussed the application of agent technology to commercial problems, presented case studies, or assessed technology adoption issues. The selection of papers at AAMAS05 and AAMAS06 were competitive.

This year the conference features 10 high quality papers that present applications ofmultiagent systems or discuss deployment related aspects of agent technology. Authors include leaders from research and academe but also commercial stakeholders and key decision makers from agent oriented software companies. Specific application areas include the use of agents in resource allocation, vehicle routing, workflow management, e-commerce, e-government, and defense. This year's papers also present more technical applications in coordination, collaboration and multiagent learning. The AAMAS07 invited speaker is John Strassner of Motorola. He also chairs the industry panel.

We are glad to see continued strong interest in the industry track. We hope the participants of the conference and the readers of these proceedings foster this community further.

We wish to thank all of the AAMAS conference organizers and industry track program committee for their support of the industry track.

Monique Calisti and Shigeo Matsubara (industry track co-chairs)
April 2007

ISBN: 978-81-904262-7-5 (RPS)                                                                                                      © 2007 IFAAMAS