Capability-based agent matchmaking

In an agent-based system, where different agents form dynamic associations for the purposes of collaborative processing, agents must be able to locate other agents that can provide them with needed capabilities to accomplish specific tasks at a given time. This implies a need for agents to be able to describe themselves to other agents, perhaps in terms of its interfaces, the services it can provide, the data it can provide, etc. To be practical, these descriptions cannot be as complex as a formal specification; neither can they be a simplistic as the distributed object systems use. This paper presents an example of the approach to agent capability description and matching that we have implemented in the InfoSleuth system. This approach is expressive enough to capture complicated agent functionality, yet simple enough to be scalable to large and diverse agent systems. It relies on shared, focused ontologies that provide a common vocabulary for describing information and services. A...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2000
• Where: AGENTS
• Authors: Anthony R. Cassandra, Damith Chandrasekara, Marian H. Nodine
• Keywords: Agent Capability Description, AGENTS 2000, Complicated Agent Functionality, Different Agents, Security Privacy