Nelson Minar

Cooperating Mobile Agents for Dynamic Network Routing

Contemporary computer networks are heterogeneous; even a single network consists of many kinds of processors and communications channels. Networks are also inherently decentralized; capability is scattered across the system. But few system design methodologies embrace or even acknowledge these complexities. New methods and approaches are required if next-generation networks are to be configured, administered and utilized to their full potentials. In our research at the MIT Media Laboratory we are building systems that use mobile software agents to manage complex real-world networks. In this chapter we describe a strategy for using a collection of cooperating mobile agents to solve routing problems for dynamic, peer-to-peer networks.

Visualizing the crowds at a web site

A visualization of the crowds of people visiting a web site is developed. Visitors are drawn as icons on a map of the web site; the animation of peoples movements conveys the crowd dynamics of visitors. The visualization combines three pieces: a map of the web site, an iconic representation of individual visitors, and an interpretation of the dynamics of visitor patterns to show crowd phenomena. The effect is to make a web site look like a social, active space.