JADE - a middleware for FIPA-compliant multi-agent systems
The capability of cooperation between agents build by, and owned by,
different organizations and individuals is expected to enable new
applications and services. However, an open and heterogeneous
environment, even if loosely constrained, still needs standards that
specify the rules that allow a society of agents to effectively exist,
interoperate and be managed.
JADE is an agent platform and a software framework to build multi-agent
systems based on the FIPA standards. The aim of JADE is to provide an
agent middle-ware that implements an agent platform and simplifies the
development while ensuring standard compliance through a comprehensive
set of system services and agents.
The JADE agent model is very basic, and it takes very few assumptions
about the internal of the agent. It deals with all those aspects that
are not peculiar to agent internals and that are independent of the
applications, such as message transport, encoding and parsing,
management of the agent life-cycle, .... In such a way, this basic model
can be adapted to different requirements and implement simple reactive
agents, as well as complex BDI agents.
In the talk the main architectural choices will be described and how
they relate to the FIPA specifications.
Also the current status of JADE, the ongoing activities, and the future
directions will be presented.