Developing Multi-Agent Systems with JADE

List of Contributors.

Preface.

1 Introduction.

2 Agent Technology Overview.

2.1 About agents.

2.2 The Foundation for Intelligent, Physical Agents (FIPA).

3 The JADE Platform.

3.1 Brief history.

3.2 JADE and the agents paradigm.

3.3 JADE architecture.

3.4 Compiling the software and launching the platform.

3.5 JADE packages.

3.6 Message transport service.

3.7 Admin and debugging tools.

4 Programming with JADE – Basic Features.

4.1 Creating agents.

4.2 Agent tasks.

4.3 Agent communication.

4.4 Agent discovery: the yellow pages service.

4.5 Agents with a GUI.

5 Programming with JADE – Advanced Features.

5.1 Ontologies and content languages.

5.2 Composing behaviours to create complex tasks.

5.3 Threaded behaviours.

5.4 Interaction protocols.

5.5 Interacting with the AMS.

5.6 Starting JADE from an external Java application.

6 Agent Mobility.

6.1 Agent mobility.

6.2 Intra-platform mobility.

6.3 Inter-platform mobility service.

6.4 Usage of the JADE mobility services.

7 JADE Internal Architecture.

7.1 Distributed coordinated filters.

7.2 Creating a JADE kernel service.

8 Running JADE Agents on Mobile Devices.

8.1 Main limitations of the mobile environment.

8.2 The LEAP add-on.

8.3 The split container execution mode.

8.4 Developing MIDP agents.

8.5 LEAP add-on advanced.

9 Deploying a Fault-Tolerant JADE Platform.

9.1 The main replication service.

9.2 Attaching the DF to a relational DB.

10 The JADE Web Services Integration Gateway.

10.1 Web service technology.

10.2 The utility of agent and Web service integration.

10.3 The WSIG architecture.

10.4 Installation requirements.

10.5 WSIG installation procedure.

10.6 WSIG operation.

10.7 Example 1: Web service client invokes an agent service.

10.8 Example 2: Agent service invokes a Web service.

11 Agent-Society Configuration Manager and Launcher.

11.1 Basic terms and concepts.

11.2 Book-trading example.

11.3 Distributed deployment.

11.4 The XML meta-model.

11.5 Inside the ASCML.

11.6 Distributed monitoring, logging and debugging.

11.7 Outlook.

12 JADE Semantics Framework.

12.1 FIPA-SL language.

12.2 Interpretation engine.

12.3 Basic semantic agent.

12.4 Specializing the interpretation activity.

12.5 Customizing belief handling.

12.6 Handling Actions.

12.7 Synthesizing standard and advanced use of the JSA.

12.8 Conclusions.

13 A Selection of Other Relevant Tools.

13.1 The Bean Generator.

13.2 JADEMX.

13.3 The Java Sniffer.

13.4 JADEX – engineering goal-oriented agents.

APPENDIX A Command Line Options.

A.1 Syntax.

A.2 Options to launch containers and main containers.

A.3 General Options.

A.4 Options of the JADE kernel-level services.

A.5 Options related to MTPs.

A.6 Options to configure the yellow page DF service.

A.7 Options specific to the JADE-LEAP platform.

A.8 Extending the command line with user-defined options.

APPENDIX B List of Symbols and Acronyms.

Bibliography.

References.

FIPA Specifications.

Index.