An architecture-based approach substantiating interagent connections in platforms

Abstract

The subject of this paper is the functional description and refinement of a connector service to manage dynamic interactions in multi-service agent platforms. First, the concept of architectural frames is introduced as a common development framework for application systems and interpreted for the class of agent systems. For the program-technical realization and execution of agent application systems, services are needed meeting the concepts of the architecture-based approach. Since platform services are based on application-independent building blocks and concepts, they are derived and developed by examining, analyzing and abstracting the requirements of application-technical building blocks on platforms. This is discussed for the aspect of inter-agent connections: a common process model of inter-agent connection is next introduced. Analyzing its partial processes, process types are identified and assigned to components of the connector service. The connector service is modeled object-orientedly and mapped onto a multi-service agent platform named ADE (Architecture type-based Development Environment), corresponding to concepts of the architecture-based approach.