Communication for Goal Directed Agents

This paper discusses some modeling issues concerning the communication between goal-directed agents. In particular, the role of performatives in agent communication is discussed. It is argued that the specification of the effect of performatives, as prescribed by FIPA, is sometimes too weak or unrealistic. The alternative, proposed in this paper, suggests a two phase modeling of the effect of the communication. A minimum effect can be hardwired in the semantics of sending and receiving messages. And the performative related part is achieved by executing a number of rules which are under the control of the agent and made accessible to the agent programmer. These issues are discussed in the context of 3APL which is a goal directed agent programming language.