Review of Content Languages Suitable for Agent-Agent Communication (original) (raw)

A review of Content Languages Suitable for Agent-Agent Communication

2002

This technical report provides an evaluation of several possible languages and semantic formalisms that could be used in agent communication to play the role of a content language in the EU Agentcities.RTD project. The conclusions and background information may however be useful for agent developers more generally. This document includes a description of candidate languages, a list of criteria applied, evaluations of the five candidate languages and a final evaluation. The five candidate languages were DAML+OIL, ebXML, FIPA-SL, KIF and Prolog and the choice made for the EU Agentcities.RTD project was to develop services in KIF, FIPA-SL or both. Furthermore it is expected that the number and type of content language used in the EU Agentcities.RTD project will evolve over time as tests are carried out. The review process which led to the authoring of this document was carried out in the context of the Agentcities.RTD IST funded project (IST-2000-28385) and we would like to thank all project partners who contributed to it. The opinions expressed in this paper are those of the authors and are not necessarily those of the EU Agentcities.RTD partners. Comment: This is the same as the abstract; we should write a separate introduction that provide a little more motivation.

A review on agent communication language

2019

Agent technology is a new emerging paradigm for software systems. In order to fully utilize the capability of this technology, multiple agents operate in software environment by cooperating, coordinating or negotiating with each other. However, these interactions require these agents to communicate with each other through a common language or protocol. Agent communication language (ACL) is a vital component in multiagent system (MAS) to enable the agents to communicate and exchange messages and knowledge. However, there are no universally agreed agent communication language that is widely adopted. Different agent communication languages and different semantic models have been developed to ease the communication between agents in MAS. The purpose of this paper is to review and highlight advances in the development of ACL.

Evaluation of KQML as an agent communication language

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 1996

Thischapter d i scusses t h e d e sirablefeatures o fl a nguages a n d p r otocols f o r communication a m ong i n telligent i n formation a g ents. T h ese desiderata ared i videdintosevencategories:f o rm,content,semantics,im plementation,n e tworking, e n vironment, a n dreliability. T h e K n owledge Q u ery a n d M anipulation Language K QML i s a n e wl a nguage a n d p r otocol f o r e xchanging i n formation andk n owledge. T h is w o rki sp a rto fal a rger e ort, t h e A R PAKn owledge S h ar-ingE ort,wh ichisaimedatdevelopingtechniquesandmethodologiesforb uildinglarge scale k n owledgeb a sesthataresharablea n dreusable.K Q MLisbo tha messageformatandamessage handlingprotocoltosupportrun timeknowledge sharinga m onga g ents. K Q MLis described a n de valuateda sa na g ent c o mmunicationlanguagerelative t o t h edesiderata. ToappearinIntelligentAg entsV olume I I P r oceedingsofthe1995Workshopon Agent T h eories, A r chitectures, a n d L a nguages. M. W ooldridge, J .P. M u ller a n d M.T ambeeds.L e ctureN o tesi nA r ti cialI n telligence,S p ringer-Verlag,1 9 96. Software agent technologies Scripting languages Agent communication languages Languages for software agents Theoretical frameworks Models of human communication Coordination protocols Agent languages KQML Tcl/Tk Java Telescript CORBA ILU OpenDoc OLE

A Review and Development of Agent Communication Language

electronic Journal of …, 2011

In this paper, we review the research findings in agent communication language (ACL). We then propose our model to develop an agent communication language based on the Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents (FIPA) Standards. The use of communicative acts enables agents to recognize the intent of the requesting agents for a specific service. The ACL handles the semantics of information exchanged between agents by the use of ontologies defined for the domain as specified by FIPA. We test the communication language in a collaborative process involving three agents.

The state of the art in agent communication languages

Knowledge and Information Systems, 2000

Like societies of humans, there is a need for agents in a multi-agent system to rely on one another, enlist the support of peers in order to solve complex tasks. Agents will be able to cooperate only through a meaningful communication language that can bear correctly their mental states and convey precisely the content of their messages. In search for the ideal agent communication language (ACL), several initiatives like the pioneering work of the Knowledge Sharing Effort and the Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents (FIPA) are paving the way for a platform where all agents would be able to interact regardless of their implementation environment. ACL is a new field of study that could gain from a survey in expanding its application areas. For this purpose, we examine in this paper the state of the art in ACL design and suggest some principles for building a generalized ACL framework. We then evaluate some existing ACL models, and present the current issues in ACL research, and new perspectives.

Trends in agent communication language

2002

Agent technology is an exciting and important new way to create complex software systems. Agents blend many of the traditional properties of AI programs—knowledge-level reasoning, flexibility, proactiveness, goaldirectedness, and so forth—with insights gained from distributed software engineering, machine learning, negotiation and teamwork theory, and the social sciences.

A Survey on Agent Communication Languages

2011

In this paper we address the issue of agent communication languages used in multi-agent systems and The Knowledge Query Manipulation Language (KQML) in particular .Based on speech Act theory , we present idea of agent communication language and various requirements which enhance the quality of ACL. How KQML packages the original content of a message without bothering about the syntax or format of the content message, is described. Overlapping the content by KQML syntax and then according to sender and receiver information it will be sent to relative receiver. We discussed different performatives of this language which are classified into main seven categories. This paper includes Foundation for intelligent physical agents(FIPA) and its own language FIPA ACL which is very similar to KQML. As KQML is widely used in agent systems, various applications of this language are also included.

On the impact of agent communication languages on the implementation of agent systems

2004

Today's software platforms that support the construction of agent systems in accordance with the FIPA specifications essentially provide enabling infrastructure services, and are still far away from adequately rendering support to current methodologies and theories for building agent systems, especially when social concepts play a significant role. Elsewhere, we have presented the RICA theory, that smoothly integrates relevant aspects of Agent Communication Languages and Organisational Models, so as to provide guidelines for agent system design. This paper explores the impact of this theory on the actual development and implementation of agent-based applications. For this purpose, the RICA metamodel is considered as a programming language, in which roles, interactions, communicative actions, etc., are first-class language entities. We show how this language can be effectively implemented as a software framework that extends the JADE platform, and provide an example that illustrates its potential.

CG-KQML+: an agent communication language and its use in a multi-agent system

2001

This paper deals with communication protocols between agents and between agents and users [3]. It presents a new communication model which is based on a careful analysis of speech act theory and on two fundamental principles applied to communication: a) communication is considered as a negotiation process and, b) communication results in an exchange of mental states. Using this model of communication and the conceptual graph formalism for the representational level, we propose a new agent communication language, called CG-KQML+ which is an extension of the KQML language. The paper also shows the use of CG-KQML+ in a MAS called POSTAGE which aims at helping users in their correspondence task. In POSTAGE, software agents manage administrative correspondence on behalf of and in cooperation with their users. Users and agents have interactions which respect administrative correspondence rules. A POSTAGE agent is responsible for sending the generated message to the addressee's POSTAGE agent. The paper presents the second version of POSTAGE which is implemented using the Prolog+CG language. This paper deals with communication protocols between agents and between agents and users [ 3]. It presents a new communication model which is based on a deep analysis of speech act theory [ 22] [28] and on two fundamental principles: a) communication is considered as a negotiation process [14, 18], b) communication results in an exchange of mental states [7, 24]. Thus, we consider agents' communication as exchanges of mental states (goals, beliefs, etc.) and exchanges of what we call communicational states (CS). Communication is considered as a negotiation game where agents negotiate about proposed CSs. An agent proposes a CS and other agents react to the proposal by accepting, rejecting the proposed CS or even asking for further information. Such an action establishes a relationship between the CS and the agent that is called an agent's positioning. Using this model of communication and the conceptual graph formalism for the representational level, we developed a new agent communication language, called CG-KQML+ which is an extension of the KQML language [12]. CG-KQML+ overcomes some limitations of KQML: KQML performatives are limited to the assertive and directive categories, inappropriate choice of performatives, different interpretations of KQML performatives. The paper also shows the use of CG-KQML+ in a MAS called POSTAGE (POSTman AGEnt) [2]. The aim of this MAS is to help users to achieve correspondence tasks. In POSTAGE, software agents manage administrative correspondence on behalf of and in cooperation with their users. Users and agents interact respecting administrative correspondence rules. A POSTAGE agent is responsible for sending the generated message to the addressee's POSTAGE agent. A first version of POSTAGE has been implemented using ECLIPSE [11] and Delphi [9]. Since that time and by using the Conceptual Graph formalism more fully, we enhanced our standardization work as well as our formulation of POSTAGE. Now, a new version of POSTAGE has been implemented with Prolog+CG language [ 15]. Being a CG-based extension of Prolog, Prolog+CG provides the abstraction level needed to easily implement a CG-based application. Indeed, our new version of POSTAGE is more concise and readable. Moreover, the integration of Java and Prolog+CG [16] enabled us to develop the front/end interface using Java and the kernel of the system using Prolog+CG. Section 2 presents our agent communication model. Section 3 presents CG-KQML+. Section 4 presents the POSTAGE multi-agent system. Section 5 discusses some future works and concludes the paper. 2 The communication model When interacting, agents can engage in two kinds of communication: agent/user communication and inter-agent communication (Figure 1). Agents communicate with users in order to characterize their needs and to provide them with answers or solutions. Agents communicate with each other in order to exchange various kinds of information. When communicating with other agents, an agent uses a specific Agent Communication Language (ACL). An agent's architecture contains a communication process which handles communication activities as well as other processes used to perform various tasks such as planning, decision making or negotiation. In this paper, we focus on the communication activity.