An Introduction to MultiAgent Systems.

Today, the need for architectures and computational models for large-scale open multi-agent systems is considered to be a key issue for the success of agent technology in real-world scenarios. This paper analyzes the significant unsolved problems that must be taken into account in order to develop real, open multi-agent systems. It identifies requirements and related open issues, discusses how some of these requirements have been tackled by current technologies, and explains how the THOMAS architecture is able to give support to these open issues. This paper also describes the THOMAS abstract architecture and computational model for large-scale open multi-agent systems based on a service-oriented approach that specifically addresses the design of virtual organizations. An application example for the management of a travel agency system, which demonstrates the new features of the proposal, is also presented.

An abstract architecture for virtual organizations: The THOMAS approach

Industrial Agents explains how multi-agent systems improve collaborative networks to offer dynamic service changes, customization, improved quality and reliability, and flexible infrastructure. Learn how these platforms can offer distributed intelligent management and control functions with communication, cooperation and synchronization capabilities, and also provide for the behavior specifications of the smart components of the system. The book offers not only an introduction to industrial agents, but also clarifies and positions the vision, on-going efforts, example applications, assessment and roadmap applicable to multiple industries. This edited work is guided and co-authored by leaders of the IEEE Technical Committee on Industrial Agents who represent both academic and industry perspectives and share the latest research along with their hands-on experiences prototyping and deploying industrial agents in industrial scenarios.Learn how new scientific approaches and technologies aggregate resources such next generation intelligent systems, manual workplaces and information and material flow systemGain insight from experts presenting the latest academic and industry research on multi-agent systemsExplore multiple case studies and example applications showing industrial agents in a variety of scenariosUnderstand implementations across the enterprise, from low-level control systems to autonomous and collaborative management units

Industrial Agents: Emerging Applications of Software Agents in Industry

In many settings Web services are now perceived as the first choice technology to provide neatly encapsulated functionality for Web-based computation. To date, many standards have been produced and adoption is accelerating across numerous application domains. This uptake has long been recognized by members of software agent community with several approaches reported that explore various means of extending the utility of Web services with the autonomous control offered by agents. This paper reports on the recent work of several members of this community to consolidate their approaches into a common specification describing how to seamlessly interconnect FIPA compliant agent systems with W3C compliant Web services. This work has been conducted within the context of the IEEE FIPA Agent and Web Service Integration working group and will be shortly published as a new FIPA specification.

The IEEE FIPA approach to integrating software agents and web services

Service-oriented Multi-Agent Systems (SoMAS) is an approach to combine the fundamental characteristics of service-oriented and multi-agent methods into a new platform for industrial automation. Several research works already targeted the connection of these technologies, presenting different perspectives in how and why to join them. This research focuses on available efforts and solutions in the area of SoMAS and explains the idea behind the service-oriented agents in industrial automation. A SoMAS system is mainly composed by shared resources in form of services and their providing/requesting agents. The paper also discusses the required engineering aspects of these systems, from the internal anatomy to the interaction patterns. Parameters of flexibility, reconfiguration, autonomy and reduced development efforts were considered and they should be the trademark of SoMAS. Aiming to illustrate the proposed approach, an example of service-oriented automation agents is given.

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Service-Oriented Agents for Collaborative Industrial Automation and Production Systems

Web services framework has been evolved in context of convergence of Web and service oriented computing and then to Web services resource framework acting as basis for grid computing. It provides a loose coupled and implementation neutral infrastructure for distributed applications. On the other hand, multi agent systems has evolved as distributed system in context of autonomic computing having ultimate aim of self-managing systems to overcome their rapidly growing complexity and to enable their further growth. In this paper, we present our solution for dynamic and seamless integration of type the distributed systems. It would help in facilitating the requirements of next generation distributed applications requiring higher demands and complexity. The AgentWeb Gateway acts as middleware between both the technologies for dynamic integration and provides protocol transformations including service discovery, service description and service invocation.

M. Omair Shafiq

Papers

AgentWeb Gateway - a middleware for dynamic integration of multi agent system and Web services framework