FOUNDATION FOR INTELLIGENT PHYSICAL AGENTS

 

 

Luís Miguel Botelho

<luis.botelho@iscte.pt>

 

This work plan is concerned with creating a specification that allows to interact with the DF and with the AMS the same way an application agent queries and informs other application agents, using other communicative acts than the request with search, register and modify actions.

 

Problem Statement:

The interaction with the DF and with the AMS agents is done using the request message with one of the specific FIPA‑management actions: register, modify and search. This modus operandi has some disadvantages:

1.       First, it is not consistent with the way application agents interact with each other.

2.       Second, it makes use of the strange and not formally defined result operator, because it must refer to the result of an action.

3.       Third, it makes use of a poorly defined and complicated pattern‑matching operation to get the descriptions that match a given template.

4.       Fourth, the pattern‑matching capabilities of the search action lack flexibility

 

         This work plan addresses the creation of a specification that enables the interaction with the DF and with the AMS using inform (and derived communication acts), subscribe and query‑ref, as in regular agent interaction.

 

Objective: The goal of this work plan is to create a specification that enables agents to search, register and modify agent and platform descriptions in the DF and in the AMS using regular querying and information messages as if they were application agents. The achievement of this goal ensures a homogeneous interaction process across several FIPA Specifications (namely agent management and agent communication specification); and avoids unclear and poorly defined concepts such as action results, while improving querying flexibility.

 

Technology: This work plan will not create new technology. It will use already existing standard inter‑agent communication technology and standard ontology technology to generalize a FIPA documented interaction process to the FIPA management specifications.

 

Specifications Generated: This work plan will create optional agent management specifications for more powerful DF and AMS agents.

 

Plan for Work:This work plan should be carried out by a specific TC. The plan for work consists of the following tasks:

·         Determine if and how the AMS and the DF should advertise their capability to understand FIPA-SL or FIPA-SL0.

·         Define the predicate to maintain agent descriptions in the DF.

·         Define the predicate to maintain agent descriptions in the AMS.

·         Define the predicate to maintain the platform description in the AMS.

·         Define the set of selector functions to access the several components of a DF agent description.

·         Define the set of selector functions to access the several components of a service description as maintained by the DF within a DF agent description.

·         Define the set of selector functions to access the several components of an AMS agent description.

·         Define the new registration method, define the new method for modifying a previous description, and define the way to query the DF and the AMS.

·         Define the contents of failure and non‑understood messages to be used within this interaction process

·         Ensure compatibility with the original Agent Management interaction process.

·         Write a set of explicative examples that make clear this method of interaction with the DF and with the AMS agents.

·         Define a plan to educate FIPA developers and FIPA members in this interaction process.

 

Milestones:

          Alternative 1

·         Discuss and improve the existing document with a proposed solution for the problems addressed by this work plan until the Baltimore meeting

·         Discuss and approve the proposed solutions during the Baltimore meeting

·         Submit the proposal to the FAB and the FIPA members in the Sidney meeting

          Alternative 2

·         Discuss and improve the existing document with a proposed solution for the problems addressed by this work plan during the Baltimore meeting

·         Discuss and approve the proposed solutions during the Sidney meeting

·         Submit the proposal to the FAB and the FIPA members in the next FIPA meeting

 

Future Work:

This work plan is thought to be self‑contained and therefore, no future work is anticipated, except the maintenance of the consistency of these specifications with agent management and with agent communication specifications.

 

Dependencies:

·         [FIPA00007] FIPA Content Languages Specification

·         [FIPA00023] FIPA Agent Management Specification

·         [FIPAacl] FIPA Agent Communication Language Specification

 

Support:

·   Fabio Bellifemine, CSELT

·   Luís Miguel Botelho, ADETTI

 

FIPA Architecture Board response:

This resolution of this work plan has been delayed until the October 2000 meeting.