Abstract
In this paper, we describe several interesting design decisions we have taken (with respect to inter- agent messaging) in the re-engineered CASA architecture for agent communication and services. CASA is a new architecture designed from the ground up; it is influenced by the major agent architectures such as FIPA, CORBA, and KQML but is intended to be independent (which doesn’t imply incompatible). The primary goals are flexibility, extendibility, simplicity, and ease of use. The lessons learned in the earlier implementation have fed the current design of the system. Among the most interesting of the design issues are the use of performatives that form a type lattice, which allows for observers, who do not necessarily understand all the performatives, to nonetheless understand a conversation at an appropriate semantic level. The new design considerations add a great deal of flexibility and integrity to an agent communications architecture.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Becerra, G.: A Security Pattern for Multi-Agent Systems. In: Far, B.H., Rochefort, S., Moussavi, M. (eds.) Proceedings of Agent Based Technologies and Systems, Calgary, Canada, August 2003, pp. 142–153 (2003)
Chopra, A., Singh, M.P.: Nonmonotonic Commitment Machines. In: Dignum, F.P.M. (ed.) ACL 2003. LNCS (LNAI), vol. 2922, pp. 183–200. Springer, Heidelberg (2004)
Finin, T., Labrou, Y.: KQML as an Agent Communication Language. In: Bradshaw, J.M. (ed.) Software Agents, pp. 291–316. MIT Press, Cambridge (1997)
Flores, R.A.: Modelling Agent Conversations for Action. Ph.D. Thesis, Department of Computer Science, University of Calgary, Canada (2002)
Flores, R.A., Kremer, R.C.: To Commit or Not To Commit: Modelling Agent Conversations for Action. In: Chaib-draa, B., Dignum, F. (eds.) Computational Intelligence, Special Issue on Agent Communication Languages, May 2002, vol. 18(2), pp. 120–173. Blackwell Publishing, Malden (2002)
Fornara, N., Colombetti, M.: Protocol Specification using a Commitment-based ACL. In: Dignum, F.P.M. (ed.) ACL 2003. LNCS (LNAI), vol. 2922, pp. 108–127. Springer, Heidelberg (2004)
Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents (FIPA). FIPA Communicative Act Repository Specification. Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents (October 18, 2002), http://www.fipa.org/specs/fipa00037/
Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents (FIPA). FIPA Interaction Protocol Library Specification. Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents (August 10, 2001), http://www.fipa.org/specs/fipa00025/XC00025E.html#_Toc505480198
Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents (FIPA). FIPA Specifications, Version 1 (1997)
Gamma, E., Helm, R., Johnson, R., Vlissides, J.: Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software. Addison-Wesley Professional Computing Series. Addison- Wesley, Reading (1994)
Mallya, A.U., Yolum, P., Singh, M.: Resolving Commitments Among Autonomous Agents. In: Dignum, F.P.M. (ed.) ACL 2003. LNCS (LNAI), vol. 2922, pp. 166–182. Springer, Heidelberg (2004)
Saeed, J.I.: Semantics. Blackwell Publishers Ltd., Oxford (1997)
Thurgood, G.: English 222: Pedagogical Grammar. English Department, California State University, Chico, August 2002, ch. 9, http://www.csuchico.edu/~gt18/222/Ch%2009.pdf
Verdicchio, M., Colombetti, M.: A logical model of social commitment for agent communication. In: Dignum, F.P.M. (ed.) ACL 2003. LNCS (LNAI), vol. 2922, pp. 128–145. Springer, Heidelberg (2004)
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Extensible Markup Language (XML). Architecture Domain, World Wide Web Consortium (October 14, 2002), http://www.w3.org/XML/
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2004 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Kremer, R., Flores, R., La Fournie, C. (2004). A Performative Type Hierarchy and Other Interesting Considerations in the Design of the CASA Agent Architecture. In: Dignum, F. (eds) Advances in Agent Communication. ACL 2003. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 2922. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-24608-4_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-24608-4_4
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-20769-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-24608-4
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive