DECAF - A Flexible Multi Agent System Architecture

摘要

The first wave of agent implementation toolkits focussed mostly on providing APIs for agent communication. We believe that new toolkits should focus on the public dissemination of complete agent architectures that provide significant value over building software agents from scratch. DECAF (Distributed, Environment Centered Agent Framework) is a software toolkit for the rapid design, development, and execution of “intelligent” agents to achieve solutions in complex software systems. DECAF is based on the premise that execution of the actions required to accomplish a task specified by an agent program is similar to a traditional operating system executing a sequence of user requests. In the same fashion that an operating system provides an environment for the execution of a user request, an agent framework provides the needed environment for the execution of agent actions. The agent environment includes the ability to communicate with other agents, efficiently maintain the current state of an executing agent, and select an execution path from a set of possible execution paths so as to support persistent, flexible, and robust actions.