Communication and migration of an embeddable mobile agent platform supporting runtime code mobility

Agent technology is emerging as an important concept for the development of distributed complex systems. A number of mobile agent systems have been developed in the last decade. However, most of them were developed to support only Java mobile agents. Furthermore, many of them are standalone platforms. In other words, they were not designed to be embedded in a user application to support the code mobility. In order to provide distributed applications with the code mobility, this article presents a mobile agent library, the Mobile-C library. The Mobile-C library is supported by various operating systems including Windows, Unix, and real-time operating systems. It has a small footprint to meet the stringent memory capacity for a variety of mechatronic and embedded systems. This library allows a Mobile-C agency, a mobile agent platform, to be embedded in a program to support C/C++ mobile agents. Functions in this library facilitate the development of a multi-agent system that can easily interface with a variety of hardware devices.

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ACL Message-Oriented Agent Communication and Migration

Volume 3: 26th Computers and Information in Engineering Conference ◽

10.1115/detc2006-99214 ◽

2006 ◽

Author(s):

Bo Chen ◽

David D. Linz ◽

Harry H. Cheng

Keyword(s):

Data Processing ◽

Mobile Agent ◽

Development Effort ◽

Agent Communication ◽

Agent Platform ◽

Agent Systems ◽

Agent Communication Language ◽

Platform Architecture ◽

And Migration ◽

Agent Migration

This article presents an approach for inter-agent communication and inter-platform agent migration based on IEEE FIPA (Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents) Agent Communication Language (ACL) messages. The promising features of IEEE FIPA standards that support open, flexible, and interoperable agent communication and migration are discussed in the paper. Messages for agent communication and migration, platform architecture that deliver and manage these messages, and the main procedure of processing a mobile agent message are also introduced. An application example, in which a mobile agent visits multiple hosts and travels via mobile agent messages, simulates a mobile agent for remote data processing. This example shows the feasibility, simplicity, and openness of the presented approach for mobile agent migration. Using FIPA ACL messages for agent migration in FIPA compliant agent systems simplifies agent platform, reduces development effort, and easily achieves inter-platform migration through well-designed communication mechanisms provided in the agent platform.

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An embeddable mobile agent platform supporting runtime code mobility, interaction and coordination of mobile agents and host systems

Information and Software Technology ◽

10.1016/j.infsof.2009.09.002 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 52 (2) ◽

pp. 185-196 ◽

Cited By ~ 16

Author(s):

Yu-Cheng Chou ◽

David Ko ◽

Harry H. Cheng

Keyword(s):

Mobile Agent ◽

Mobile Agents ◽

Agent Platform ◽

Code Mobility

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Component Agent Systems

Architectural Design of Multi-Agent Systems ◽

10.4018/978-1-59904-108-7.ch005 ◽

2011 ◽

pp. 95-114

Author(s):

Paulo Marques

Keyword(s):

Technology Adoption ◽

Network Management ◽

Case Studies ◽

Mobile Agent ◽

Mobile Agents ◽

Agent Platform ◽

Agent Systems ◽

Systems Research ◽

Mobile Agent Systems ◽

The Future

One central problem preventing widespread adoption of mobile agents as a code structuring primitive is that current mainstream middleware implementations do not convey it simply as such. In fact, they force all the development to be centered on mobile agents, which has serious consequences in terms of software structuring and, in fact, technology adoption. This chapter discusses the main limitations of the traditional platform-based approach, proposing an alternative: component-based mobile agent systems. Two case studies are discussed: the JAMES platform, a traditional mobile agent platform specially tailored for network management, and M&M, a component-based system for agent-enabling applications. Finally, a bird’s eye perspective on the last 15 years of mobile agent systems research is presented along with an outlook on the future of the technology. The authors hope that this chapter brings some enlightenment on the pearls and pitfalls surrounding this interesting technology and ways for avoiding them in the future.

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Component Agent Systems

Mobile Computing ◽

10.4018/978-1-60566-054-7.ch243 ◽

2009 ◽

pp. 3300-3319

Author(s):

Paulo Marques ◽

Luís Silva

Keyword(s):

Technology Adoption ◽

Network Management ◽

Case Studies ◽

Mobile Agent ◽

Mobile Agents ◽

Agent Platform ◽

Agent Systems ◽

Systems Research ◽

Mobile Agent Systems ◽

The Future

One central problem preventing widespread adoption of mobile agents as a code structuring primitive is that current mainstream middleware implementations do not convey it simply as such. In fact, they force all the development to be centered on mobile agents, which has serious consequences in terms of software structuring and, in fact, technology adoption. This chapter discusses the main limitations of the traditional platform-based approach, proposing an alternative: component-based mobile agent systems. Two case studies are discussed: the JAMES platform, a traditional mobile agent platform specially tailored for network management, and M&M, a component-based system for agent-enabling applications. Finally, a bird’s eye perspective on the last 15 years of mobile agent systems research is presented along with an outlook on the future of the technology. The authors hope that this chapter brings some enlightenment on the pearls and pitfalls surrounding this interesting technology and ways for avoiding them in the future.

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A Research on Mobile Agent Technique and Application Development

Applied Mechanics and Materials ◽

10.4028/www.scientific.net/amm.66-68.782 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 66-68 ◽

pp. 782-787

Author(s):

Jia Jun Chen ◽

Chang Feng Xing ◽

Gao Feng Liu ◽

Zhi Feng Cheng

Keyword(s):

Mobile Agent ◽

Intelligent Agent ◽

Agent Technology ◽

Distributed Network ◽

Application Development ◽

Agent Platform ◽

Communication Paradigm ◽

Application Potential

Mobile agent (MA) is an offspring of distributed technology combined with agent technology and it is a intelligent agent with mobility. So it has good application potential in distributed network. The appearance and characteristics of mobile agent are presented, and then three standards and criterion related to the mobile agent are summarized. Five representational mobile agent platform (MAP) are discussed and their communication paradigm and structure, providing service and characteristics are compared. Finally, the application potential, deficiencies of current research and the possible trend of mobile agent technology (MAT) are discussed.

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