Building a Collaborative Information Agent in a HomeBot Application

Abstract Information agents are cooperative agents whose main goal is to collaborate and assist task agents like mobile agents in obtaining information from heterogeneous data sources. Considering the current tools and techniques available in the community, this study sets out to find the practical problems that a developer might encounter in the process of engineering an information agent in the context of a real estate agent HomeBot application. In this technology assessment report, we provide here the approach for circumventing them and document the lessons we have learned. Our assessment is that the construction of an information agent based on current agent building technologies is feasible but not seamless. More importantly, we contend that what is needed is a wholistic tool that integrates smoothly various sub-technologies together. This is not yet provided for in the community and something agent tool builders should address immediately.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2003
• Where: CAISE
• Authors: Lito Perez Cruz, Arkady B. Zaslavsky, David Squire
• Keywords: Abstract Information Agents, CAISE 2003, Estate Agent Homebot, Information Agent