P2P Agent Platform: Implementation and Testing

摘要

Peer-to-Peer (P2P) computing, a novel paradigm for distributed information technology, is currently receiving ever increasing interest from both academia and industry. Recent efforts undertaken to integrate multi-agent and P2P architectures are one of such very promising new opportunities. Indeed, multi-agent system (MAS) may be thought of as a multitude of autonomous entities, and, therefore, structuring the agents as a P2P network of nodes may result in an architecture providing a new dimension for design of open MAS composed of a highly transient population of agents. This paper presents an implementation of a P2P Agent Platform providing transparent interaction for distributed P2P agents. The developed P2P Agent Platform implements the basic mandatory components assumed by the functional architecture proposed by the FIPA Nomadic Agents Working Group. This implementation is supported with a search mechanism, a function of an underlying P2P infrastructure. The platform verification is done via prototyping a P2P ground object detection MAS in which the agents situated on top of the distributed instances of the P2P Agent platform provide classification services.