Authors:
Merik Meriste
1
;
Tõnis Kelder
1
;
Jüri Helekivi
1
and
Leo Motus
2
Affiliations:
1
University of Tartu, Estonia
;
2
Tallinn Technical University, Estonia
Keyword(s):
software agent, time-aware agent, multi-agent system, agent based programming, agent engineering environment, construction of time-aware agents
Related
Ontology
Subjects/Areas/Topics:
Agent-Oriented Programming
;
Enterprise Information Systems
;
Software Agents and Internet Computing
Abstract:
Autonomous behaviour of components characterises today computer applications. This has introduced a new generic architecture – multi-agent systems – where the interactions of autonomous proactive components (agents) – are decisive in determining the behaviour of the system. Increasingly, agent-based applications need
time-awareness of agents and/or their interactions. Therefore the application architecture is to be enhanced with sophisticated time model that enables the study of time-aware behaviour and interactions of agents. The focus of the paper is on the inner structure of a time-aware agent, the enabling infrastructure for agent’s time-sensitive communication, and the class templates for the construction of time-aware multi-agents. The prototype development is carried out in C# since this platform is suitable for controlling multiple simultaneous threads, and flexible to handle sophisticated time models.