Rapid Application Development Using Agent Itinerary Patterns

The behavior of mobile agents is often prescribed by a set of tasks represented in an itinerary. We have used a variety of agent itinerary styles, ranging from simple, sequential expressions to complex, finite state-based representations. The design and implementation of an itinerary can be a complex, time intensive task, particularly in mobile agent architectures, where resources and task execution occur in a distributed network. To address this issue, we have developed a set of reusable, flexible itinerary patterns that enable the rapid development of complex agent itineraries. Used in conjunction with a task library, these itinerary patterns have reduced our time to develop agent applications by up to 40 percent.