Intelligent Software Agents Group

1
Intelligent Software Agents Lab
The Robotics Institute Carnegie Mellon University
5000 Forbes Avenue Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3890 (U
.S.A.)
2
Transform the Internet to ServiceNet

• from a network of information providers
• user must find information sources
• user must integrate information
• to a network of service providers
• agents find requested unanticipated information
  for the user
  
• agents perform requested and implied services for
  the user
  
• agents present finished product to user

3
OVERVIEW

• Ubiquity
• Fitness
• Constructability
• Policy

4
MoCHA
Mobile Communication of Heterogeneous Agents

• Anytime, Anywhere Interfaces
• Context-sensitive preference management
• Integrates Devices and Agentified Services

www.cs.cmu.edu/softagents/mocca.html
5
Improve and Diffuse Accessibility

• Any Time - Any Place Computing
• Agents accessible from any device
• Information conveyed on most appropriate device
• Information conveyed at most appropriate time
• Unobtrusive Computing
• Reduce the overhead of humans having to specify
  their intentions
  
• Agents proactively assist humans based on their
  awareness of the users goals and context

6
OVERVIEW

• Ubiquity
• Fitness
• Constructability
• Policy

7
Fitness Through Agent Security and Formal Analysis

• Security in Agent Communities
• www.cs.cmu.edu/softagents/security.html
• Secure Agent Infrastructure
• www.cs.cmu.edu/softagents/security_agent.html

• Security Applications
• wireless collaboration and communications
• military logistics planning
• financial portfolio management
• non-combatant evacuation operation

8
OVERVIEW

• Ubiquity
• Fitness
• Constructability
• Policy

9
Assumptions

• Open and Dynamic Environments
• agents / services will not always exist
• agent locations change
• system load balancing
• agent mobility
• agent identity changes
• cannot predict its name
• cannot predict the vocabulary used to describe
  it
  
• Assume Service Redundancy
• multiple/ competing service providers
• differentiate on service parameters
• speed, price, security, reliability, reputation,
  etc.

10
Achieve Ideals of Software Engineering

• Truly reusable software components
• Accessible to lay-programmers
• intuitive and imprecise
• Scalable, reliable, robust, and fault-tolerant
  computing
  
• Program by high-level service requirement
  descriptions
  
• Example
• To find the best flights,
• find any airline reservation system
• that publishes departure / arrival times
• of four or more commercial airlines and
• comparative prices for those legs.

11
MAS Infrastructure
Individual Agent Infrastructure
MAS Interoperation Translation Services Interope
rator Services
Interoperation Interoperation Modules
Capability to Agent Mapping Middle Agents
Capability to Agent Mapping Middle Agent Componen
ts
Name to Location Mapping Agent Name Service
Name to Location Mapping ANS Component
Security Certificate Authority Cryptographic Se
rvice
Security Security Module Private/Public Key
s
Performance Services MAS Monitoring Reputation
Services
Performance Services Performance Service Modules
Multi-Agent Management Services
Logging Activity Visualization Launching
Management Services Logging and Visualization Com
ponents
ACL Infrastructure Public Ontology Protocol Ser
vers
ACL Infrastructure Parser, Private Ontology, Prot
ocol Engine
Communications Infrastructure Discovery Message
Transfer
Communication Modules Discovery Message Transf
er Modules
Operating Environment Machines, OS, Network, M
ulticast Transport Layer, TCP/IP, Wireless,
Infrared, SSL
12
Necessary Network Technologies

• Local Area Network Discovery
• SSDP, SLP
• Wide Area Network Discovery
• Agent-to-Agent Discovery
• Network Security
• protection from malicious attacks and spoofing
• Encryption, Authentication, Repudiation
• Agent Location Schemes
• White Pages, Yellow Pages, LDAP

13
RETSINA Functional Architecture
User 1
User 2
User u
Goal and Task Specifications
Results
Interface Agent 1
Interface Agent 2
Interface Agent i
Solutions
Tasks
Task Agent 1
Task Agent 2
Task Agent t
Info Service Requests
Information Integration Conflict Resolution
Replies
Middle Agent 2
Information Agent n
Advertisements
Information Agent 1
Answers
Info Source m
Info Source 1
Info Source 2
Queries
14
Interface Agents

• Solicit input from user for the agent system
• Present output to the user
• Frequently part of task agent
• Often representative of a device

15
Task Agents

• Know what to do and how to do it
• Responsible for task delegation
• May enlist the help of other task agents

16
Middle Agents

• Infrastructure agents that aid in MAS
  scalability
  
• Many have been identified in Sycara Wong 00
• Most common
• Agent Name Service (White Pages)
• Matchmaker (Yellow Pages)
• Broker
• MAS Interoperator

17
RETSINA Matchmakers

• Enable an agent to find another agent
• by functionality, capability, availability, time
  to completion, etc.
  
• without knowing who or where the provider agent
  might be
  
• Enables multi-agent systems MASs
• to dynamically reconfigure themselves to suite a
  need
  
• reduce agent systems administration overhead
• to scale in the number of agents that are
  distributed in a computer network
  
• RETSINA has two main types of Matchmakers
• RETSINA Matchmaker
• http//www.cs.cmu.edu/softagents/matchmaker.html
  
  
• Please try it http//www.cs.cmu.edu/softagents
  /a-match/index.html
  
• LARKS Matchmaker
• Language for Advertisement and Request for
  Knowledge Sharing
  
• http//www.cs.cmu.edu/softagents/larks.html

18
The Matchmaking Process
2. Request for service
Matchmaker
Requester
3. Unsorted full description of (P1,P2, , Pk)
1. Advertisement of capabilities
service parameters
4. Delegation of service
5. Results of service request
Provider 1
Provider n
19
MAS Interoperators

• Translate between MAS architectures
• Advertisements
• Queries and replies
• Informational messages
• Achieve economic MAS scalability

20
Information Agents

• Present information sources to MAS
• Port MAS output to external data stores
• Represent data and events
• Four well-known and reusable behaviors
• Single-Shot Query
• Active Monitor Query
• Passive Monitor Query
• Update Query

21
RETSINA Agent Architecture
Reusable Environment for Task-Structured
Intelligent Networked Agents

• Four parallel threads
• Communicator
• for conversing with other agents
• Planner
• matches sensory input and beliefs to
  possible plan actions
  
• Scheduler
• schedules enabled plans for execution
• Execution Monitor
• executes scheduled plan
• swaps-out plans for those with higher priorities

http//www.cs.cmu.edu/softagents/retsina.html
22
OVERVIEW

• Ubiquity
• Fitness
• Constructability
• Policy

23
Contact Information
Prof. Katia Sycara Principle Investigator The
Robotics Institute Carnegie Mellon University 50
00 Forbes Avenue Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3890 (U.S.A
.) Tel [phone] Fax [phone]
569 katia_at_cs.cmu.edu http//www.cs.cmu.edu/k
atia
Joseph Giampapa Project Manager The Robotics I
nstitute Carnegie Mellon University 5000 Forbes
Avenue Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3890 (U.S.A.) Tel
1 [phone] Fax [phone] gar
of_at_cs.cmu.edu http//www.cs.cmu.edu/garof