Planning and matchmaking for the interoperation of information processing agents

Abstract

In today's open, distributed environments, there is an increasing need for systems to assist the interoperation of tools and information resources. This paper describes a multi-agent system, DALEKS, that supports such activities for the information processing domain. With this system, information processing tasks are accomplished by the use of an agent architecture incorporating task planning and information agent matchmaking components. We discuss the characteristics of planning in this domain and describe how information processing tools are specified for the planner. We also describe the manner in which planning, agent matchmaking, and information task execution are interleaved in the DALEKS system. An example application taken from the domain of university course administration is provided to illustrate some of the activities performed in this system.