Mobeet: A Multi-agent Framework for Ubiquitous Information Systems

In recent years, the rapid development of network infrastructure and the spread of terminals capable of network access have made it possible to access networks at any place and at any time. Ubiquitous information systems, in which necessary information can be accessed easily and safely at any place, are becoming an important issue. It is, however, hard to design such distributed systems when the user uses many kinds of terminals and migrates with these. That is, traditional approaches to development of distributed systems have problems when the systems are used in a ubiquitous environment. This paper proposes a new framework for ubiquitous information systems. The framework includes three kinds of agents: User Interface Agents, Programmable Agents and Service Mediation Agents. We can easily design ubiquitous information systems by ensuring that these agents collaborate. In addition, in cases where distributed systems must be implemented on various networks and terminals, it gives a high degree of flexibility to the systems. We also evaluate the framework's flexibility.