An Agent-Oriented Framework for Constructing Mobile Agent Systems

Abstract

Agents and mobile agents hold significant benefits for current trends in computing. Despite some industries actively exploring mobile agent applications the promised deployment has not taken place as expected. Possible incompatibility between the general view of a mobile agent and the diverse definitions of agents has been raised as one of the potential reasons why industry has not yet adopted agent and mobile technology as widely as expected. Developing agent systems requires specialized skills and knowledge in various areas. Accordingly, regardless of a novice mobile agent programmer's computing background, he/she usually has to assimilate new knowledge in order to implement mobile agents. Furthermore, to realise the full potential of mobile agents, they should be implemented according to proper agent programming principles. This paper describes a framework for constructing a mobile agent system that takes agent orientation into account to provide a programming model for novice mobile agent programmers.