Gustavo Aranda

Supporting Agent Organizations

Organizational Theory concepts have been adapted to improve, extend and facilitate Agent Organizations modeling. Thus, three basic organizational topologies from which other more complex organizations can be composed have been identified. Moreover, this organizational modeling has been implemented in a specific MAS platform (SPADE) making use of Multiuser Conference technology. We have also defined several services for SPADE that ease the implementation of organization dynamics, such as member access and agent interaction control.

Characterizing Massively Multiplayer Online Games as Multi-Agent Systems

The number of players of Massively Multiplayer Online Games is increasing quite fast, and the mechanics of these virtual worlds are getting more and more complex. Due to the eminently distributed nature of these games and their growing necessity of modern AI techniques, it is time to introduce design methods that take advantage of the power of Multi-Agent Systems in order to face the challenges of designing a modern Multiplayer Online Game. In this work, an introductory step into the characterization of Multiplayer Online Games as Multi-Agent Systems is presented. It is based on using mechanisms and concepts derived from the agent theory, like Electronic Institutions and Agent Organizations, as foundations for building the game system and the virtual environments.

Adding new communication services to the FIPA message transport system

Agent communication is one of the most important aspects in the multi-agent system area. In recent years, several works have been developed that are related to the agent communication problem. This paper presents a new method for agent and agent platform communication in accordance with FIPA proposals. It uses the Jabber protocol as a new message transport protocol (MTP). This protocol provides additional services that are not included in the current standard FIPA MTP. It provides facilities for “presence notification”, “multi-user conference” and “security services“. As a result of this work, a new plug-in for the JADE platform that incorporates this transport protocol has been developed.

The MMOG Layer: MMOG Based on MAS

Massively Multiplayer Online Games present a new and exciting domain for service-oriented agent computing as the mechanics of these virtual worlds get more and more complex. Due to the eminently distributed nature of these game systems and their growing necessity of modern AI techniques, it is time to introduce design methods that take advantage of the power of Multi-Agent Systems, Agent Organizations and Electronic Institutions in order to face the challenges of designing a modern Massively Multiplayer Online Game. This article follows previous pieces of work in the line of Multi-Agent Systems and Massively Multiplayer Online Games research into a common ontology to represent the information that agents store and share and towards the use of the THOMAS service architecture and the SPADE agent platform to address these challenges. The main focus of the article is the so called MMOG Layer: a software layer which is independent of the environment simulation and the human-interface devices. An example implementation of such layer is also set out.

Building Service-Based Applications for the iPhone Using RDF: A Tourism Application

The Resource Description Framework (RDF) language is a widely used tool for information representation among several agent-based frameworks and applications. In this paper, one of these applications is introduced: a tourism application that allows the user to find touristic hotspots and venues matching specific criteria, an application that is used via an interface designed specially for the Apple iPhoneTM. Besides, this application uses a modern and efficient agent platform with RDF support to power the whole architecture.

Towards developing multi-agent systems in ada

Agent-oriented technology is a rising paradigm for developing quality software in complex domains. Currently, no Ada interface or middleware exist for the development of agent-based applications. In this paper, an Ada binding for developing agent and multi-agent-based applications in Ada is proposed. This binding is compatible with an existing open-source agent platform named SPADE.