20-854: Intelligent Agents

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Introduction

The software that you can download from this page enables you to:

write an agent that can connect to an agent name service [ANS];
write an agent that can communicate with other agents that were located via the ANS;
debug your agent by composing RETSINA-style KQML messages, via the KQMLMessageSenderGUI.

RETSINA agents communicate with each other, via the RETSINA Communicator, in an agent communication language [ACL] called KQML. A precondition for doing any agent development would be to verify that you can run an ANS, connect to it, run a Communicator, and send KQML messages through a Communicator connection. This software will help you do this.

Installing the Java JARs

The following JAR files have been ported from a Unix environment, installed, and successfully used on a Windows95 laptop with 40MB RAM. On your computer:

cd C:\
mkdir pleiades
cd pleiades
mkdir java
cd java
mkdir jars
cd jars

Download either of the two WinZip archives to your "jars" directory. There is an autoextractor version, or a plain WinZip file, if you prefer.

Agent Name Service

The agent name service [ANS] mechanism resolves agent names to agent locations. Thus, when you write an agent, you do not need to keep track of the protocol, hostname and port of all the agents your agent will use. All your agent needs to do is contact an ANS, provide it the symbolic name of the agent you wish to contact, and the ANS returns all the necessary data in an encapsulated object.