Agent-based Communication for Distributed Workflow Management Using Jini Technologies
2003 Award Winner
M. Brian Blake, The MITRE Corporation
ABSTRACT
Agent communication has developed widely over the past decade for various
types of multiple agent environments. Originally, most of this research
surrounded simulation systems and inference systems. Subsequently, agents
are expected to adapt to, dynamically create, and understand evolving
conversation policies. This concept of agent communication is not completely
necessary in some domains. One such domain is that of distributed workflow
management with implications into Electronic Commerce. In this domain,
agents are "middle-agents" that represent the distributed
components that implement each individual workflow step. By representing
the component-based services of each step, multiple distributed agents
can essentially manage a workflow or supply chain that spans several
on- line businesses (B2B). The WARP (Workflow-Automation through Agent-Based
Reflective Processes) architecture is a multi-agent architecture developed
to support distributed workflow management environments where distributed
components are used to implement each of the workflow steps. This paper
describes an object-oriented workflow ontology for this distributed
workflow management domain. There is also a software engineering process
for integrating new component-based services into this ontology. Furthermore,
the interaction protocol and supporting implementation based on the
Knowledge Query and Manipulation Language (KQML) are presented. This
agent communication architecture is implemented using Sun MicroSystems'
Java and Jini technologies.
Publication
International Journal on Artificial Intelligence Tools, Vol.
12, No. 1, pp. 81-99.
Additional Search Keywords
object-oriented ontology, rule-based agent communication, Jini, workflow management
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