Transcript Intelligent Software Agents Group

Intelligent Software Agents Lab
The Robotics Institute
Carnegie Mellon University
5000 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3890 (U.S.A.)
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
OVERVIEW
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Ubiquity
Fitness
Constructability
Policy
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
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 user’s goals and context
OVERVIEW
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Ubiquity
Fitness
Constructability
Policy
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
OVERVIEW
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Ubiquity
Fitness
Constructability
Policy
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.
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.
MAS Infrastructure
MAS Infrastructure
Individual Agent Infrastructure
MAS Interoperation
Interoperation
Translation Services Interoperator Services
Interoperation Modules
Capability to Agent Mapping
Capability to Agent Mapping
Middle Agents
Middle Agent Components
Name to Location Mapping
Name to Location Mapping
Agent Name Service
ANS Component
Security
Security
Certificate Authority Cryptographic Service
Security Module
Private/Public Keys
Performance Services
Performance Services
MAS Monitoring Reputation Services
Performance Service Modules
Multi-Agent Management Services
Management Services
Logging Activity Visualization Launching
Logging and Visualization Components
ACL Infrastructure
ACL Infrastructure
Public Ontology Protocol Servers
Parser, Private Ontology, Protocol Engine
Communications Infrastructure
Communication Modules
Discovery Message Transfer
Discovery
Message Transfer Modules
Operating Environment
Machines, OS, Network, Multicast Transport Layer, TCP/IP, Wireless, Infrared, SSL
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
RETSINA Functional Architecture
User 1
User 2
User u
Goal and Task
Specifications
Results
Interface Agent 1
Interface Agent 2
Interface Agent i
Tasks
Solutions
Task Agent 1
Info & Service
Requests
Task Agent 2
Information Integration
Conflict Resolution
Middle Agent 2
Advertisements
Information
Agent 1
Queries
Task Agent t
Info
Source 1
Replies
Information
Agent n
Answers
Info
Source 2
Info
Source m
Interface Agents
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Solicit input from user for the agent system
Present output to the user
Frequently part of task agent
Often representative of a device
Task Agents
• Know what to do and how to do it
• Responsible for task delegation
• May enlist the help of other task agents
Middle Agents
• Infrastructure agents that aid in MAS scalability
• Many have been identified in Sycara & Wong ‘00
• Most common:
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Agent Name Service (White Pages)
Matchmaker (Yellow Pages)
Broker
MAS Interoperator
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
The Matchmaking Process
2. Request for service
Requester
Matchmaker
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
MAS Interoperators
• Translate
between MAS
architectures:
• Advertisements
• Queries and replies
• Informational messages
• Achieve
economic MAS
scalability
Information Agents
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Present information sources to MAS
Port MAS output to external data stores
Represent data and events
Four well-known and reusable behaviors:
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Single-Shot Query
Active Monitor Query
Passive Monitor Query
Update Query
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
OVERVIEW
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Ubiquity
Fitness
Constructability
Policy
Contact Information:
Prof. Katia Sycara
Principle Investigator
Joseph Giampapa
Project Manager
The Robotics Institute
Carnegie Mellon University
5000 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3890 (U.S.A.)
The Robotics Institute
Carnegie Mellon University
5000 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3890 (U.S.A.)
Tel: +1 (412) 268-8825
Fax: +1 (412) 268-5569
Tel: +1 (412) 268-5245
Fax: +1 (412) 268-5569
[email protected]
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~katia
[email protected]
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~garof