Re: communication between agents

[Matt Gaston]

On Tue, 11 Apr 2000, Paul E. Johnson wrote:

> iwata wrote:
> > 
> > Dear everybody,
> > 
> > I am a new comer for this list and multi-agent field.
> > I would like some agents to communicate.  For example,
> > Bug1 says "I am hungry," and
> > Bug2 responds to Bug1 "I found food at site A."
> 
> I think there is an example like that in the HelloWorld app in the
> swarmapps package.
> 
> If I were doing this, here is what I'd do. I'd probably create a class
> to old the message.  Suppose it is called Mesg.  That class is created
> in case I need to pass complicated information, such as several
> coodrdinates.

Along these same lines, do you think there is any interest in implementing
some formal agent communication language (ACL) within the swarm context.
There are several ACL's that allow for flexible comminucation between
agents, even agents that exist on seperate platforms, including KQML and
FIPA ACL. The one problem that may arise is that the implementation of a
formal ACL may be beyond the scope of swarm, especially since we are
sure that all of the agents that are comminucating will be within the same
platform.  The big benefit would be that things such as syntax, semantics
and pragmatics will be taken care of within the ACL implementation. 
Through the use of an ACL, agents are able to take on an "attitude" about
conversation and communication.

Matt

Matthew E. Gaston
address@hidden
address@hidden




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