Simulation and Agent-Based Simulation at WOA: 25 of Years of Simulation-Related Contributions, and an Outlook of What Awaits Us

The expression computer simulation implies the definition and adoption of a computational model to improve the understanding of some system’s behavior and/or to evaluate strategies for its operation, in explanatory or predictive schemes. Computer simulation is quite diffused, since in many situations practical and/or ethical reasons make it impossible to directly observe a system that we want to study or manage. In these cases, the possibility of performing ‘in-machina’ experiments is often the only, hazardous way to study, analyze and evaluate models of those realities. The Workshop on Objects and Agents (WOA) venue is no exception: in several cases papers presented at WOA discussed simulations carried out to demonstrate the working of an agent-based model or software system, to calibrate or evaluate it. On the other hand, agent-based approaches also represented a set of conceptual, modeling and computational tools that are particularly suited to represent situations characterized by the presence of autonomous entities whose local behaviors (actions and interactions) determine the evolution of the overall system, often in non-trivial ways: agent-based approaches are, in other words, particularly in tune with some of the characteristics of complex systems. This chapter provides a bird’s eye view of the relevant contributions presented at WOA in the last 25 years, highlighting the scientific impact of agent-based approaches in the more general area of simulation, and giving a perspective on what we can expect to witness in the near future for this area.