Today´s lecture
14:15 Agent Technologies by Ismar Slomic
15:15 Practical Architecture Work at Telenor by Jan Øyvind
Aagedal
16:15 Group exercise is cancelled, send email if help needed
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(Multi) Agent Software Technologies
Ismar Slomic
SINTEF ICT
21. April 08
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The Adequacy Hypothesis
Agent-oriented approaches can significantly enhance
our ability to model, design and build complex
(distributed) software systems
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What is an Agent?
“encapsulated computer system, situated in some environment,
and capable of flexible autonomous action in that environment
in order to meet its design objectives” (Wooldridge)
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Example: BigDog – might be
implemented by agent(s)
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What is an Agent?
“encapsulated computer system, situated in some
environment, and capable of flexible autonomous
action in that environment in order to meet its
design objectives” (Wooldridge)
• control over internal state and over own behaviour
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From Objects to Agents
autonomous
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What is an Agent?
“encapsulated computer system, situated in some
environment, and capable of flexible autonomous
action in that environment in order to meet its
design objectives” (Wooldridge)
• control over internal state and over own behavior
• experiences environment through sensors and acts
through effectors
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From Objects to Agents
autonomous
interacting
Object Request Broker
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What is an Agent?
“encapsulated computer system, situated in some
environment, and capable of flexible autonomous
action in that environment in order to meet its
design objectives” (Wooldridge)
• control over internal state and over own behavior
• experiences environment through sensors and acts
through effectors
• reactive: respond in timely fashion to environmental
change
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From Objects to Agents
autonomous
interacting
reactive
Object Request Broker
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What is an Agent?
“encapsulated computer system, situated in some
environment, and capable of flexible autonomous
action in that environment in order to meet its
design objectives” (Wooldridge)
• control over internal state and over own behavior
• experiences environment through sensors and acts
through effectors
• reactive: respond in timely fashion to environmental
change
• proactive: act in anticipation of future goals
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From Objects to Agents
autonomous
interacting
reactive
pro-active
Object Request Broker
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What is an Agent?
Weak Notion
of Agency
Stronger Notion
of Agency
Other
Properties
Autonomy
Knowledge/Beliefs
Rational
Social Ability
Intentions
Truthful
Desires/Goals
Benevolent
Reactivity
Pro-Activeness
Obligations
Mobile
Capabilities
Emotional
Because the concept of goals is frequently adopted in a
business context as well as in service-oriented architectures, it
is clear that we need to deal with the strong notion of agency.
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Platform independent model for
multi-agents (PIM4MAS)
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Agent aspect
 Agent has access to a set of Resources from its surrounding environment. It can
perform particular Roles and Behaviors
 Agent may have certain Capabilities that represent the set of Behaviors the
Agent can possess
 Agent could be member in an Organization that represents the social structure
agents can take part in
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Organization aspect
 Organization is a special kind of Cooperation
 Therefore the Organization can perform Roles and have Capabilities which can
be performed by its members, be it agents or suborganizations
 Multiple inheritance of the Organization, from the Agent and the Cooperation,
also allows it to have its own internal Protocol that specifies how the
Organization coordinates its members
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Behavioural aspect
 Behavior refers to a set of Flows that could be either of the type InformationFlow
or ControlFlow
 Behaviour contains a set of Steps (i.e. StructuredSteps and Tasks) that are
linked to each other via a Flow.
 Plans could either be composed by more complex control structures (i.e. Scope)
or by simple atomic activities (i.e. Task)
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Role aspect
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Interaction aspect
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PIM to PSM
PIM4MAS
JACK
Metamodel
JADE
metamodel
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References
http://www.bostondynamics.com/content/sec.php?section=BigDog
(BigDog)
http://www.sei.cmu.edu/str/descriptions/orb.html (ORB)
http://www.agent-software.com/ (JACK)
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