Stefan Poslad
Abstract
Multi-Agent-Systems or MAS represent a powerful distributed computing model, enabling agents to cooperate and complete with each other and to exchange both semantic content and a semantic context to more automatically and accurately interpret the content. Many types of individual agent and MAS models have been proposed since the mid-1980s, but the majority of these have led to single developer homogeneous MAS systems. For over a decade, the FIPA standards activity has worked to produce public MAS specifications, acting as a key enabler to support interoperability, open service interaction, and to support heterogeneous development. The main characteristics of the FIPA model for MAS and an analysis of design, design choices and features of the model is presented. In addition, a comparison of the FIPA model for system interoperability versus those of other standards bodies is presented, along with a discussion of the current status of FIPA and future directions.
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Index Terms
- Specifying protocols for multi-agent systems interaction
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Reviews
Srini Ramaswamy
This paper provides a good, detailed view of multiagent system (MAS) messaging protocols and semantics. It discusses the potential of the Foundation of Intelligent Physical Agents (FIPA) to support interoperability in heterogeneous distributed computing services. It attempts to present a critical analysis of FIPA standard specifications for MAS interoperability. Poslad discusses the FIPA agent interaction protocol suite model (AIPS) and emphasizes its constraints: no holistic semantic model to link across the individual protocol, such as the cross-check of the communicative act (CA) request type, and lack of a common ontology that can be represented across protocols. The paper also discusses and analyzes beliefs, desires, and intentions (BDI), which is a formally defined semantics for CA; a nonformally specified semantics, as an alternative to BDI; and the standard CA set proposed by FIPA. Aspects discussed include the computation complexity and the unrealistic assumption of the sincerity of the agents in BDI, and the missing types of CA in the CA sets. The issues of the design of a CA interaction pattern and an agent platform are also discussed. A good comparison of FIPA with other standards is conducted. Poslad claims that FIPA is more abstract and flexible, and has a richer set of CA primitives, efficient encoding, reusable interaction patterns, and generic processes. However, the main problem?that it has a simple semantic service model?still remains. The paper provides productive criticism of the multiple communication primitives that FIPA defines. Two calls for action are introduced: the need to properly compare and standardize the multiple standards bodies that govern service-oriented architectures (SOAs), and the need to update FIPA to include a current Web services or semantic architecture. Addressing more security aspects of the messaging protocols would have been useful. For example, how is security accomplished when sending and receiving messages between agents__?__ Secondly, when the paper mentions the assumptions of FIPA (three MAS properties proposed for specification to support interoperability) and their implementation in the FIPA model, additional references would have helped. It would have been better if the paper additionally analyzed FIPA on the basis of complexity. Another topic needing exploration is whether the semantic MAS interactions are stateful and how that would affect how they scale. It is mentioned that if agents use the sincerity assumption, then that is not a realistic behavior in e-commerce; while this alludes to the facilitation of an attack by a rogue or problematic agent, more information on how the trusting agents can be compromised and how FIPA can address the issue would have helped. In summary, this is a well-written paper on FIPA and its messaging protocols and a good read for MAS enthusiasts. I would like to thank two of my PhD students, Grady McCorkle and Chuanlei Zhang, who helped me with this review. Online Computing Reviews Service
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