Externalisation and internalization: A new perspective on agent modularisation in multi-agent system programming

Abstract

Agent modularisation is a main issue in agent and multi-agent system programming. Existing solutions typically propose constructs such as capabilities to group and encapsulate in well-defined modules inside the agent different kinds of agent features, that depend on the architecture or model adopted - examples are goals, beliefs, intentions, skills. In this paper we introduce a further perspective, which can be considered complimentary to existing approaches, which accounts for externalizing some of such functionalities into the computational environment where agents are (logically) situated. This leads to some benefits in terms of reusability, dynamic extensibility and openness. To this end, we exploit artifact-based computational environments as introduced by the A&A meta-model and implemented in CArtAgO technology: agent modules are realised as suitably designed artifacts that agents can dynamically exploit as external tools to enhance their action repertoire and - more generally - their capability to execute tasks. Then, to let agent (and agent programmers) exploit such capabilities abstracting from the low-level mechanics of artifact management and use, we exploit the dual notion of internalization, which consists in dynamically consulting and automatically embedding high-level usage protocols described in artifact manuals as agent plans. The idea is discussed providing some practical examples of use, based on CArtAgO as technology for programming artifacts and Jason agent platform to program the agents. © 2010 Springer-Verlag.