| dc.description.abstract | In the world of mobile computing, agent-based systems present one of the most promising areas of research in distributed systems. Component-based architecture is a new paradigm that is ideal for developing agent frameworks, as it attempts to effectively encapsulate the functionality of an object while satisfying interface conventions.
Currently, mobile agent systems are monolithic in nature, coming with different modules like communication, mobility, naming, control, and monitoring under a single package. This single package presents the distributed application designer with extra features and may pose additional overhead, which may not be desirable for use in their applications of interest. This, in turn, demands a generic and extensible framework that should provide the minimum support required by the designer for developing distributed applications.
In this dissertation, we propose the architecture of LiWA (A Lightweight Agent Framework) aimed at developing an extensible architecture for building agent-based systems. We focus on designing and implementing a generic agent framework upon which suitable distributed applications can be developed by designers. The focus of the framework we have developed is mainly on making it generic, scalable, and extensible in both usage and design.
We decouple various agent modules in LiWA, which adds to the modularity and extensibility of our framework. By decoupling various agent modules, we achieve the flexibility of easily integrating into our framework any new technology or techniques that may be developed in the future by different R&D organizations and universities. The framework provides the designer with the minimum support needed for building complex distributed applications.
Besides using Java for our framework, we have used one of Sun's newest leading-edge Internet technologies—JavaSpaces, which is based on the services provided by Sun's Jini platform. LiWA incorporates the advantages of component-based architecture by exploiting JavaSpaces technology, which uses the Jini component architecture to create distributed systems. A single implementation of LiWA can provide a foundation for several different agent applications.
Secondly, we also focus on one of the main challenges: finding real-life applications for agent-based systems, which presently hampers the wider acceptance of this future technology. Using our generic framework, we develop applications from different fields of distributed systems and demonstrate the genericity, scalability, and extensibility of our framework. These applications are ones that can prove to be promising use cases for agent-based systems in the near future. | |
