Is it an ontology or an abstract syntax? Modelling objects, knowledge and agent messages

Abstract

This paper describes a system of interlinked ontologies to describe the concepts underlying FIPA agent communication. A meta-modelling approach is used to relate object-oriented domain ontologies and abstract models of agent communication and content languages and to describe them in a single framework. The modelling language used is the Unified Modeling Language, which is extended by adding the concepts of resource and reference. The resulting framework provides an elegant basis for the development of agent systems that combine object-oriented information representation with agent messaging protocols.