Catálogo de publicaciones - libros

This chapter describes , an interpreter written in Java for an extended version of AgentSpeak, a logic-based agent-oriented programming language that is suitable for the implementation of reactive planning systems according to the BDI architecture. We describe both the language and the various features and tools available in the platform.

This chapter presents 3APL, which is a multi-agent programming language, and its corresponding development platform. The 3APL language is motivated by cognitive agent architectures and provides programming constructs to implement individual agents directly in terms of beliefs, goals, plans, actions, and practical reasoning rules. The syntax and semantics of the 3APL programming language is explained. Various features of the language and platform and some software engineering issues are discussed.

The project (http://www.cs.umd.edu/projects/impact) aims at developing a powerful multi-agent system platform, which (1) is able to deal with heterogenous and distributed data, (2) can be realised on top of arbitrary legacy code, (3) is built on a clear foundational basis, and (4) scales up for realistic applications. We will describe its main features and several extensions of the language that have been investigated (and partially implemented).

The multi-agent systems (MAS) paradigm is one of the most important and promising approaches to occur in computer science during the 90s. However, for an effective use of the agent technology in real life applications, specific programming languages are required. CLAIM is a high-level agent-oriented programming language that combines cognitive aspects such as knowledge, goals and capabilities and computational elements such as communication, mobility and concurrence in order to reduce the gap between the design and the implementation phase. CLAIM has an operational semantics that is a first step towards the verification of the built MAS. The language is supported by a distributed platform called SyMPA, implemented in Java, compliant with the specifications of the MASIF standard from the OMG, that offers all the necessary mechanisms for a secure execution of a distributed MAS. CLAIM and SyMPA have been used for developing several applications that proved the expressiveness of the language and the robustness of the platform.

JADE (Java Agent Development Framework) is a software environment to build agent systems for the management of networked information resources in compliance with the FIPA specifications for interoperable multi-agent systems. JADE provides a middleware for the development and execution of agent-based applications which can seamless work and interoperate both in wired and wireless environment. Moreover, JADE supports the development of multi-agent systems through the predefined programmable and extensible agent model and a set of management and testing tools. Currently, JADE is one of the most used and promising agent development framework; in fact, it has a large user group, involving more than two thousands active members, it has been used to realize real systems in different application sectors, and its future development is guided by a governing board involving some important industrial companies.

This chapter presents Jadex, a software framework for the creation of goal-oriented agents following the belief-desire-intention (BDI) model. The Jadex project aims to make the development of agent based systems as easy as possible without sacrificing the expressive power of the agent paradigm. The objective is to build up a rational agent layer that sits on top of a middleware agent infrastructure and allows for intelligent agent construction using sound software engineering foundations. Fostering a smooth transition from traditional distributed systems to the development of multi-agent systems, well established object-oriented concepts and technologies such as Java and XML are employed wherever applicable. Moreover, the Jadex reasoning engine tries to overcome traditional limitations of BDI systems by introducing explicit goals. This allows goal deliberation mechanisms being realized and additionally facilitates application development by making results from goal-oriented analysis and design easily transferable to the implementation layer. The system is freely available under LGPL license and provides extensive documentation as well as illustrative example applications.

Software agents offer a range of benefits to the development of complex software systems. However, before these benefits can be realised by the computing industry there is a need for an agent platform that can be accepted by industry. In this paper we describe the JACK agent platform: a mature and robust commercial product. We argue that JACK meets requirements such as familiarity, scalability and integratibility which make it suitable for adoption by industry. We also describe interesting features of JACK such as the use of capabilities for structuring agents, and JACK’s approach to teamwork which allows hierarchical team structures.

Enabling effective interactions between agent teams and humans for disaster response is a critical area of research, with encouraging progress in the past few years. However, previous work suffers from two key limitations: (i) limited human situational awareness, reducing human effectiveness in directing agent teams and (ii) the agent team’s rigid interaction strategies that limit team performance. This paper presents a software prototype called DEFACTO (Demonstrating Effective Flexible Agent Coordination of Teams through Omnipresence). DEFACTO is based on a software proxy architecture and 3D visualization system, which addresses the two limitations described above. First, the 3D visualization interface enables human virtual omnipresence in the environment, improving human situational awareness and ability to assist agents. Second, generalizing past work on adjustable autonomy, the agent team chooses among a variety of “team-level” interaction strategies, even excluding humans from the loop in extreme circumstances.

ARTIMIS is an effective intelligent agent technology designed and developed by France Telecom. It provides a generic framework to instantiate dialogue agents that are able to engage in rich interactions with human users (with no restriction on the communication media) as well as with other software agents. Several operational ARTIMIS-based applications have been developed, and commercial services have begun to be deployed. ARTIMIS relies on the principle that a system’s ability to carry on a natural dialogue with a human user must result from the system’s inherent intelligence. Consequently, an intelligent dialogue system needs to be first conceived and designed as an intelligent system. ARTIMIS provides a generic framework for the development of intelligent agents whose behaviour is wholly driven by explicit cognitive principles, such as rationality, communication and cooperation. ARTIMIS agents can also be components of multi-agent systems. In this case, to interact with other agents, they use the FIPA ACL standard (Agent Communication Language), whose formalism and semantics come from ARCOL, the ARTIMIS Communication Language.