An interface for agent-environment interaction

Tristan Behrens*, Koen V. Hindriks, Rafael H. Bordini, Lars Braubach, Mehdi Dastani, Jürgen Dix, Jomi F. Hübner, Alexander Pokahr

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Chapter in Book / Report / Conference proceedingConference contributionAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

Agents act and perceive in shared environments where they are situated. Although there are many environments for agents - ranging from testbeds to commercial applications - such environments have not been widely used because of the difficulty of interfacing agents with those environments. A more generic approach for connecting agents to environments would be beneficial for several reasons. It would facilitate reuse, comparison, the development of truly heterogeneous agent systems, and increase our understanding of the issues involved in the design of agent-environment interaction. To this end, we have designed and developed a generic environment interface standard. Our design has been guided by existing agent programming platforms. These platforms are not only suitable for developing agents but also already provide some support for connecting agents to environments. The interface standard itself is generic, however, and does not commit to any specific platform features. The interface proposal has been implemented and evaluated in a number of agent platforms. We aim at a de facto standard that might become an actual standard in the near future.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProgramming Multi-Agent Systems - 8th International Workshop, ProMAS 2010, Revised Selected Papers
Pages139-158
Number of pages20
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 9 Apr 2012
Externally publishedYes
Event8th International Workshop on Programming Multi-Agent Systems, ProMAS 2010 - Toronto, ON, Canada
Duration: 11 May 201011 May 2010

Publication series

NameLecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
Volume6599 LNAI
ISSN (Print)0302-9743
ISSN (Electronic)1611-3349

Conference

Conference8th International Workshop on Programming Multi-Agent Systems, ProMAS 2010
Country/TerritoryCanada
CityToronto, ON
Period11/05/1011/05/10

Keywords

  • Agent development techniques
  • Case studies and implemented systems
  • tools and environments

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