The open agent architecture: A framework for building distributed software systems
TL;DR: The Open Agent Architecture is structured so as to minimize the effort involved in creating new agents and "wrapping" legacy applications; to encourage the reuse of existing agents; and to allow for dynamism and flexibility in the makeup of agent communities.
Abstract: The Open Agent Architecture (OAA), developed and used for several years at SRI International, makes it possible for software services to be provided through the cooperative efforts of distributed collections of autonomous agents. Communication and cooperation between agents are brokered by one or more facilitators, which are responsible for matching requests, from users and agents, with descriptions of the capabilities of other agents. Thus it is not generally required that a user or agent know the identities, locations, or number of other agents involved in satisfying a request. OAA is structured so as to minimize the effort involved in creating new agents and "wrapping" legacy applications, written in various languages and operating on various platforms; to encourage the reuse of existing agents; and to allow for dynamism and flexibility in the makeup ofagent communities. Distinguishing features of OAA as compared with related work include extreme flexibility in using facilitator-based delegation of com...
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Proceedings Article•
30 Jul 2001
TL;DR: The overall structure of the ontology, the service profile for advertising services, and the process model for the detailed description of the operation of services are described, which compare DAML-S with several industry efforts to define standards for characterizing services on the Web.
Abstract: The Semantic Web should enable greater access not only to content but also to services on the Web. Users and software agents should be able to discover, invoke, compose, and monitor Web resources offering particular services and having particular properties. As part of the DARPA Agent Markup Language program, we have begun to develop an ontology of services, called DAML-S, that will make these functionalities possible. In this paper we describe the overall structure of the ontology, the service profile for advertising services, and the process model for the detailed description of the operation of services. We also compare DAML-S with several industry efforts to define standards for characterizing services on the Web.
3,061 citations
Cites background from "The open agent architecture: A fram..."
...For example, the following two sub-properties are examples of different degrees of quality, and could be defined within some additional ontology. serviceParameter An expandable list of properties that may accompany a profile description. communicationThru This property provides a high-level summary of how a service may communicate, such as what agent communication language (ACL) is used (e.g., FIPA, KQML, SOAP)....
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..., RPC, HTTP-FORM, CORBA IDL, SOAP, Java RMI, OAA ACL [12]), and service-specific details s uch as port numbers used in contacting the service....
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...org/wfmc), work on modeling verb semantics and event structure [17], previous work on action -inspired Web service markup [14], work in AI on modeling complex actions [11], and work in agent commun ication languages [12, 8]....
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...Typically a grounding will specify a communications protocol (e.g., RPC, HTTP-FORM, CORBA IDL, SOAP, Java RMI, OAA ACL [12]), and service-specific details such as port numbers used in contacting the service....
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...Alternatively, a server could proactively advertise itself in DAML-S with a service registry, also called middle agent [4, 24, 12], so that reque sters can find it when they query the registry....
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09 Jun 2002
TL;DR: In this article, the authors propose a solution based on DAML-S, a DAMLbased language for service description, and show how service capabilities are presented in the Profile section of a DAMl-S description and how a semantic match between advertisements and requests is performed.
Abstract: The Web is moving from being a collection of pages toward a collection of services that interoperate through the Internet. The first step toward this interoperation is the location of other services that can help toward the solution of a problem. In this paper we claim that location of web services should be based on the semantic match between a declarative description of the service being sought, and a description of the service being offered. Furthermore, we claim that this match is outside the representation capabilities of registries such as UDDI and languages such as WSDL.We propose a solution based on DAML-S, a DAML-based language for service description, and we show how service capabilities are presented in the Profile section of a DAML-S description and how a semantic match between advertisements and requests is performed.
2,412 citations
Book•
02 Apr 2007TL;DR: JADE (Java Agent Development Framework) is a software framework to make easy the development of multi-agent applications in compliance with the FIPA specifications and can be considered a middle-ware that implements an efficient agent platform and supports theDevelopment of multi agent systems.
Abstract: JADE (Java Agent Development Framework) is a software framework to make easy the development of multi-agent applications in compliance with the FIPA specifications. JADE can then be considered a middle-ware that implements an efficient agent platform and supports the development of multi agent systems. JADE agent platform tries to keep high the performance of a distributed agent system implemented with the Java language. In particular, its communication architecture tries to offer flexible and efficient messaging, transparently choosing the best transport available and leveraging state-of-the-art distributed object technology embedded within Java runtime environment. JADE uses an agent model and Java implementation that allow good runtime efficiency, software reuse, agent mobility and the realization of different agent architectures.
2,353 citations
Cites background from "The open agent architecture: A fram..."
...Some of the most interesting are AgentBuilder [30], AgentTool [4], ASL [16], Bee-gent [15], FIPA-OS [23], Grasshopper-2 [10], MOLE [1], the Open Agent Architecture [20], RETSINA [34] and Zeus [25]....
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...The Open Agent Architecture [20] is a truly open architecture to realise distributed agent systems in a number of languages, namely C, Java, Prolog, Lisp, Visual Basic and Delphi....
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TL;DR: The authors propose the markup of Web services in the DAML family of Semantic Web markup languages, which enables a wide variety of agent technologies for automated Web service discovery, execution, composition and interoperation.
Abstract: The authors propose the markup of Web services in the DAML family of Semantic Web markup languages. This markup enables a wide variety of agent technologies for automated Web service discovery, execution, composition and interoperation. The authors present one such technology for automated Web service composition.
1,978 citations
Book•
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01 Jan 1999
TL;DR: This second edition has been completely revised, capturing the tremendous developments in multiagent systems since the first edition appeared in 1999.
Abstract: Multiagent systems are made up of multiple interacting intelligent agents -- computational entities to some degree autonomous and able to cooperate, compete, communicate, act flexibly, and exercise control over their behavior within the frame of their objectives They are the enabling technology for a wide range of advanced applications relying on distributed and parallel processing of data, information, and knowledge relevant in domains ranging from industrial manufacturing to e-commerce to health care This book offers a state-of-the-art introduction to multiagent systems, covering the field in both breadth and depth, and treating both theory and practice It is suitable for classroom use or independent study This second edition has been completely revised, capturing the tremendous developments in multiagent systems since the first edition appeared in 1999 Sixteen of the book's seventeen chapters were written for this edition; all chapters are by leaders in the field, with each author contributing to the broad base of knowledge and experience on which the book rests The book covers basic concepts of computational agency from the perspective of both individual agents and agent organizations; communication among agents; coordination among agents; distributed cognition; development and engineering of multiagent systems; and background knowledge in logics and game theory Each chapter includes references, many illustrations and examples, and exercises of varying degrees of difficulty The chapters and the overall book are designed to be self-contained and understandable without additional material Supplemental resources are available on the book's Web site Contributors:Rafael Bordini, Felix Brandt, Amit Chopra, Vincent Conitzer, Virginia Dignum, Jurgen Dix, Ed Durfee, Edith Elkind, Ulle Endriss, Alessandro Farinelli, Shaheen Fatima, Michael Fisher, Nicholas R Jennings, Kevin Leyton-Brown, Evangelos Markakis, Lin Padgham, Julian Padget, Iyad Rahwan, Talal Rahwan, Alex Rogers, Jordi Sabater-Mir, Yoav Shoham, Munindar P Singh, Kagan Tumer, Karl Tuyls, Wiebe van der Hoek, Laurent Vercouter, Meritxell Vinyals, Michael Winikoff, Michael Wooldridge, Shlomo Zilberstein
1,692 citations
References
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01 Jan 1995
TL;DR: This paper explores a particular type of rational agent, a BeliefDesire-Intention (BDI) agent, and integrates the theoretical foundations of BDI agents from both a quantitative decision-theoretic perspective and a symbolic reasoning perspective.
Abstract: The study of computational agents capable of rational behaviour has received a great deal of attention in recent years. Theoretical formalizations of such agents and their implementations have proceeded in parallel with little or no connection between them. Tkis paper explores a particular type of rational agent, a BeliefDesire-Intention (BDI) agent. The primary aim of this paper is to integrate (a) the theoretical foundations of BDI agents from both a quantitative decision-theoretic perspective and a symbolic reasoning perspective; (b) the implementations of BDI agents from an ideal theoretical perspective and a more practical perspective; and (c) the building of large-scale applications based on BDI agents. In particular, an air-trafflc management application will be described from both a theoretical and an implementation perspective.
3,050 citations
"The open agent architecture: A fram..." refers background in this paper
...This advantage can also be a disadvantage: although a programmer does not need to refer to a speci c process during computation, the framework does not provide programmatic control for doing so in cases where this would be practical....
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TL;DR: In this approach to software development, application programs are written as software agents, i.e. software “components” that communicate with their peers by exchanging messages in an expressive agent communication language.
Abstract: The software world is one of great richness and diversity. Many thousands of software products are available to users today, providing a wide variety of information and services in a wide variety of domains. While most of these programs provide their users with significant value when used in isolation, there is increasing demand for programs that can interoperate – to exchange information and services with other programs and thereby solve problems that cannot be solved alone. Part of what makes interoperation difficult is heterogeneity. Programs are written by different people, at different times, in different languages; and, as a result, they often provide different interfaces. The difficulties created by heterogeneity are exacerbated by dynamics in the software environment. Programs are frequently rewritten; new programs are added; old programs removed. Agent-based software engineering was invented to facilitate the creation of software able to interoperate in such settings. In this approach to software development, application programs are written as software agents, i.e. software “components” that communicate with their peers by exchanging messages in an expressive agent communication language. Agents can be as simple as subroutines; but typically they are larger entities with some sort of persistent control (e.g. distinct control threads within a single address space, distinct processes on a single machine, or separate processes on different machines). The salient feature of the language used by agents is its expressiveness. It allows for the exchange of data and logical information, individual commands and scripts (i.e. programs). Using this language, agents can communicate complex information and goals, directly or indirectly “programming” each other in useful ways. Agent-based software engineering is often compared to object-oriented programming. Like an “object”, an agent provides a message-based interface independent of its internal data structures and algorithms. The primary difference between the two approaches lies in the language of the interface. In general object-oriented programming, the meaning of a message can vary from one object to another. In agent-based software engineering, agents use a common language with an agent-independent semantics. The concept of agent-based software engineering raises a number of important questions.
2,373 citations
"The open agent architecture: A fram..." refers background in this paper
...Genesereth has emphasized the role of a facilitator (Genesereth and Singh, 1993; Genesereth and Katchpel, 1994), and in (Genesereth and Singh, 1993) describes a facilitator based on logical reasoning....
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Book•
30 May 1997
TL;DR: The design of and experimentation with the Knowledge Query and Manipulation Language (KQML), a new language and protocol for exchanging information and knowledge, which is aimed at developing techniques and methodology for building large-scale knowledge bases which are sharable and reusable.
2,223 citations
Proceedings Article•
01 Jan 1992
TL;DR: Knowledge Interchange Format (KIF) is a computer-oriented language for the interchange of knowledge among disparate programs that has declarative semantics and logically comprehensive semantics.
Abstract: Knowledge Interchange Format (KIF) is a computer-oriented language for the interchange of knowledge among disparate programs. It has declarative semantics (i.e. the meaning of expressions in the representation can be understood without appeal to an interpreter for manipulating those expressions); it is logically comprehensive (i.e. it provides for the expression of arbitrary sentences in the rst-order predicate calculus); it provides for the representation of knowledge about the representation of knowledge; it provides for the representation of nonmonotonic reasoning rules; and it provides for the de nition of objects, functions, and relations.
1,017 citations
Book•
01 Oct 1997
TL;DR: The goal of this ongoing project is to develop an open agent architecture and accompanying user interface for networked desktop and handheld machines that support distributed execution of a user’s requests, interoperability of multiple application subsystems, addition of new agents, and incorporation of existing applications.
Abstract: Tile goal of this ongoing project is to develop an open agent architecture and accompanying user interface for networked desktop and handheld machines. The system we are building should support distributed execution of a user’s requests, interoperability of multiple application subsystems, addition of new agents, and incorporation of existing applications. It should also be transparent; users should not need to know where their requests are being executed, nor how. Finally, in order to facilitate the user’s delegating tasks to agents, the architecture will be served by a multimodal interface, including pen, voice, and direct manipulation. Design considerations taken to support this functionality will be discussed below.
548 citations