JACKTM Intelligent Agents: An Industrial Strength Platform

Software agents offer a range of benefits to the development of complex software systems. However, before these benefits can be realised by the computing industry there is a need for an agent platform that can be accepted by industry. In this paper we describe the JACK agent platform: a mature and robust commercial product. We argue that JACK meets requirements such as familiarity, scalability and integratibility which make it suitable for adoption by industry. We also describe interesting features of JACK such as the use of capabilities for structuring agents, and JACK’s approach to teamwork which allows hierarchical team structures.

[1]  Anand S. Rao,et al.  An architecture for real-time reasoning and system control , 1992, IEEE Expert.

[2]  Fausto Giunchiglia,et al.  Tropos: An Agent-Oriented Software Development Methodology , 2004, Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems.

[3]  Winfried Lamersdorf,et al.  Evaluation of Agent-Oriented Software Methodologies - Examination of the Gap Between Modeling and Platform , 2004, AOSE.

[4]  Paolo Busetta,et al.  Structuring BDI Agents in Functional Clusters , 1999, ATAL.

[5]  Michael Winikoff,et al.  Avoiding Resource Conflicts in Intelligent Agents , 2002, ECAI.

[6]  Amal El Fallah Seghrouchni,et al.  Coordination of Complex Systems Based on Multi-agent Planning: Application to the Aircraft Simulation Domain , 2004, PROMAS.

[7]  Iyad Rahwan,et al.  Agent-Based Support for Mobile Users Using AgentSpeak(L) , 2003, AOIS.

[8]  M.P. Georgeff,et al.  Procedural knowledge , 1986, Proceedings of the IEEE.

[9]  Pavan Sikka,et al.  Teamed UAVs - a New Approach with Intelligent Agents , 2003 .

[10]  Lin Padgham,et al.  A Comparison of BDI Based Real-Time Reasoning and HTN Based Planning , 2004, Australian Conference on Artificial Intelligence.

[11]  Emma Norling,et al.  Folk psychology for human modelling: extending the BDI paradigm , 2004, Proceedings of the Third International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, 2004. AAMAS 2004..

[12]  Lin Padgham,et al.  An Open Meteorological Alerting System: Issues and Solutions , 2004, ACSC.

[13]  Michael Winikoff,et al.  An Exploration of Bugs and Debugging in Multi-agent Systems , 2003, ISMIS.

[14]  Weixiong Zhang,et al.  Towards Flexible Teamwork in Persistent Teams: Extended Report , 2000, Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems.

[15]  Martin Wirsing,et al.  Formal Syntax and Semantics of Java , 1999 .

[16]  Andrew Lucas,et al.  Intelligent battlespace awareness and information dissemination through the application of BDI intelligent agent technologies , 2000, Defense, Security, and Sensing.

[17]  Michael Winikoff,et al.  Detecting & exploiting positive goal interaction in intelligent agents , 2003, AAMAS '03.

[18]  Rafael H. Bordini,et al.  Running AgentSpeak(L) Agents on SIM_AGENT , 2001, ATAL.

[19]  Michael Winikoff,et al.  Declarative and procedural goals in intelligent agent systems , 2002, KR 2002.

[20]  Martyn Fletcher,et al.  The Story of the Holonic Packing Cell , 2003 .

[21]  Michael Wooldridge,et al.  Applications of intelligent agents , 1998 .

[22]  Michael Luck,et al.  Agent technology: Enabling next generation computing , 2003 .

[23]  Marcus J. Huber.  JAM: a BDI-theoretic mobile agent architecture , 1999, AGENTS '99.

[24]  Michael Luck,et al.  Understanding Agent Systems , 2001, Springer Series on Agent Technology.

[25]  Michael Winikoff,et al.  Debugging multi-agent systems using design artifacts: the case of interaction protocols , 2002, AAMAS '02.

[26]  Andrew Lucas,et al.  JACK Intelligent Agents – Summary of an Agent Infrastructure , 2001 .

[27]  Michael Luck,et al.  A Manifesto for Agent Technology: Towards Next Generation Computing , 2004, Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems.

[28]  Michael Winikoff,et al.  Developing intelligent agent systems - a practical guide , 2004, Wiley series in agent technology.

[29]  Franco Zambonelli,et al.  Developing multiagent systems: The Gaia methodology , 2003, TSEM.

[30]  Lin Padgham,et al.  An empirical evaluation of reasoning about resource conflicts , 2004, Proceedings of the Third International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, 2004. AAMAS 2004..

[31]  NICHOLAS R. JENNINGS,et al.  An agent-based approach for building complex software systems , 2001, CACM.

[32]  Franco Zambonelli,et al.  Challenges and Research Directions in Agent-Oriented Software Engineering , 2004, Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems.

[33]  James Odell,et al.  Objects and Agents Compared , 2002, J. Object Technol..

[34]  Frank E. Ritter,et al.  Embodying the JACK Agent Architecture , 2001, Australian Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence.

[35]  Álvaro F. Moreira,et al.  Proving BDI Properties of Agent-Oriented Programming Languages: The asymmetry thesis principles in AgentSpeak(L) , 2004, Annals of Mathematics and Artificial Intelligence.

[36]  Michael Wooldridge,et al.  A Formal Specification of dMARS , 1997, ATAL.

[37]  Lin Padgham,et al.  Representation and Reasoning for Goals in BDI Agents , 2002, ACSC.

[38]  Scott A. DeLoach,et al.  Multiagent Systems Engineering , 2001, Int. J. Softw. Eng. Knowl. Eng..

[39]  Edmund H. Durfee,et al.  UM-PRS: An implementation of the procedural reasoning system for multirobot applications , 1994 .

[40]  Franco Zambonelli,et al.  Methodologies and Software Engineering for Agent Systems , 2004, Multiagent Systems, Artificial Societies, and Simulated Organizations.

[41]  Martyn Fletcher,et al.  Implementing Industrial Multi-agent Systems Using JACK , 2003, PROMAS.

[42]  Pavel Vrba.  JAVA-Based Agent Platform Evaluation , 2003, HoloMAS.

[43]  Anand S. Rao,et al.  AgentSpeak(L): BDI Agents Speak Out in a Logical Computable Language , 1996, MAAMAW.

[44]  Frank E. Ritter,et al.  Towards supporting psychologically plausible variability in agent-based human modelling , 2004, Proceedings of the Third International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, 2004. AAMAS 2004..

[45]  Michael Wooldridge,et al.  Model checking agentspeak , 2003, AAMAS '03.

[46]  Leon Sterling,et al.  ROADMAP: extending the gaia methodology for complex open systems , 2002, AAMAS '02.