Inter-agent communication in IMAGO prolog

Abstract

A mobile agent application often involves a collection of agents working together for a common task. For cooperation among agents to succeed, an effective inter-agent communication framework is required. This paper describes the design of the communication mechanism in IMAGO Prolog. IMAGO Prolog is a variant of Prolog with an extended API for intelligent mobile agent applications. It deploys mobile messengers for inter-agent communication. Messengers are anonymous, thin agents dedicated to deliver messages. A messenger can move, clone, and make decisions for its assigned task: track down the receiving agent and reliably deliver messages in a dynamic, changing world. Moreover, agent communication language is purely declarative and consistent with the syntax, semantics and pragmatics of Prolog. As a result, mobile agents exchange information and achieve synchronization through first order logic terms and unification. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2005.