Build your own intelligent agent system... Intelligent agent technology is a tool of modern computer science that can be used to engineer complex computer programmes that behave rationally in dynamic and changing environments. Applications range from small programmes that intelligently search the Web buying and selling goods via electronic commerce, to autonomous space probes. This powerful technology is not widely used, however, as developing intelligent agent software requires high levels of training and skill. The authors of this book have developed and tested a methodology and tools for developing intelligent agent systems. With this methodology (Prometheus) developers can start agent-oriented designs and implementations easily from scratch saving valuable time and resources. Developing Intelligent Agent Systems not only answers the questions "what are agents?" and "why are they useful?" but also the crucial question: "how do I design and build intelligent agent systems?" The book covers everything a practitioner needs to know to begin to effectively use this technology - including an introduction to the notion of agents, a description of the concepts involved, and a software engineering methodology. Read on for: a practical step-by-step introduction to designing and building intelligent agent systems. a full life-cycle methodology for developing intelligent agent systems covering specification, analysis, design and implementation of agents. PDT: Prometheus Design Tool - software support for the Prometheus design process. the example of an electronic bookstore to illustrate the design process throughout the book. Electronic resources including the Prometheus Design Tool (PDT), can be found at: http://www.cs.rmit.edu.au/agents/prometheus This book is aimed at industrial software developers, software engineers and at advanced undergraduate students. It assumes knowledge of basic software engineering but does not require knowledge of Artificial Intelligence or of mathematics. Familiarity with Java will help in reading the examples in chapter 10.

Lin Padgham is the author of Developing Intelligent Agent Systems: A Practical Guide, published by Wiley.

Michael Winikoff is the author of Developing Intelligent Agent Systems: A Practical Guide, published by Wiley.

Foreword from the Series Editor

ix

Preface

xi

Acknowledgement

xiii

Agents and Multi-Agent Systems

1

(6)

What is an Intelligent Agent?

1

(3)

Why are Agents Useful?

4

(3)

Concepts for Building Agents

7

(14)

Situated Agents: Actions and Percepts

7

(1)

Proactive and Reactive Agents: Goals and Events

8

(2)

Challenging Agent Environments: Plans and Beliefs

10

(2)

Social Agents

12

(1)

Agent Execution Cycle

13

(6)

Choice of Plan to Execute

14

(2)

Many Ways to Achieve a Goal

16

(3)

Summary

19

(2)

Overview of the Prometheus Methodology

21

(12)

Why a New Methodology?

22

(1)

Prometheus: A Brief Overview

23

(4)

System Specification

24

(1)

Architectural Design

25

(1)

Detailed Design

26

(1)

Guidelines for Using Prometheus

27

(2)

Agent-Oriented Methodologies

29

(4)

System Specification

33

(20)

Goal Specification

34

(7)

Identify Initial Goals

35

(1)

Goal Refinement

36

(5)

Functionalities

41

(2)

Scenario Development

43

(4)

Goal Step Details

45

(1)

Capturing Alternative Scenarios

46

(1)

Interface Description

47

(4)

Percepts and Actions

48

(2)

Data

50

(1)

Checking for Completeness and Consistency

51

(2)

Architectural Design: Specifying the Agent Types

53

(14)

Deciding on the Agent Types

56

(1)

Grouping Functionalities

56

(7)

Review Agent Coupling - Acquaintance Diagrams

63

(2)

Develop Agent Descriptors

65

(2)

Architectural Design: Specifying the Interactions

67

(14)

Interaction Diagrams from Scenarios

68

(6)

Interaction Protocols from Interaction Diagrams

74

(3)

Develop Protocol and Message Descriptors

77

(4)

Finalizing the Architectural Design

81

(18)

Overall System Structure

82

(1)

Identifying Boundaries of the Agent System

82

(2)

Describing Percepts and Actions

84

(4)

Defining Shared Data Objects

88

(3)

System Overview Diagram

91

(3)

Checking for Completeness and Consistency

94

(5)

Consistency between Agents and Functionalities

95

(1)

Consistency between Interaction Diagrams, Scenarios and Protocols

95

(1)

Consistency of Communication Specifications

96

(1)

Consistency between Descriptors and the System Overview Diagram

97

(2)

Detailed Design: Agents, Capabilities and Processes

99

(10)

Capabilities

100

(2)

Agent Overview Diagrams

102

(1)

Process Specifications

103

(3)

Develop Capability and Process Descriptors

106

(3)

Detailed Design: Capabilities, Plans and Events

109

(16)

Capability Overview Diagrams

110

(2)

Sub-tasks and Alternative Plans

112

(4)

Identifying Context Conditions

113

(2)

Coverage and Overlap

115

(1)

Events and Messages

116

(1)

Action and Percept Detailed Design

117

(1)

Data

118

(1)

Develop and Refine Descriptors

118

(1)

Checking for Completeness and Consistency

119

(6)

Agent Completeness

120

(1)

Missing or Redundant Items

120

(1)

Consistency between Artifacts

121

(2)

Important Scenarios

123

(2)

Implementing Agent Systems

125

(14)

Agent Platforms

125

(2)

JACK

127

(1)

Example

127

(11)

Agents

128

(2)

Capabilities

130

(3)

Data

133

(1)

Messages/Events

134

(2)

Plans

136

(2)

Automatic Generation of Skeleton Code

138

(1)

A Electronic Bookstore

139

(60)

B Descriptor Forms

199

(6)

C The AUML Notation

205

(10)

Bibliography

215

(6)

Index

221

What is included with this book?

The New copy of this book will include any supplemental materials advertised. Please check the title of the book to determine if it should include any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.

The Used, Rental and eBook copies of this book are not guaranteed to include any supplemental materials. Typically, only the book itself is included. This is true even if the title states it includes any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.