Research Network for Agent-Based Computing: Towards AgentLink III? Michael Luck University of Southampton, UK

What is AgentLink II? Open Network for agent-based computing. Funding started Autumn Intended to give European industry a head start in a crucial new area of IT. Build on existing activities from AgentLink ( )

Goals Competitive advantage through promotion of agent systems technology Improvement in standard, profile, industrial relevance of research in agents Promote excellence of teaching and training Widely known, high quality European forum for issues, problems, solutions in research and development

What does it do? Five areas of work: –Industrial action gaining advantage for Euro industry –Research coordination excellence & relevance of Euro research –Education & training fostering agent skills –Special Interest Groups focussed interactions –Information infrastructrure facilitating AgentLink work

Industrial Action Aims to: –promote awareness & takeup of agents –foster new collaborations in promising areas of agent technology –facilitate technology transfer –support & promote standards (e.g., FIPA) Activities: –industrial meetings, software database, …

Research Coordination Aims to: –promote academic awareness & take-up of agent research –foster industrially relevant agent research –promote new collaborations for technology transfer Activities: –research repositories, newsletter, workshop support

Education & Training Aims: –foster agent-related R&D skills –disseminate agent-related courses, reports, syllabuses, … Activities: –summer schools –Bellaterra next week!!! –dissemination of agent courses

Special Interest Groups A key area of AL activity Travel support for regular meetings –Agent-Mediated Electronic Commerce –Agent-Based Social Simulation –Methodologies and Software Engineering for Agent Systems –Intelligent Information Agents –Intelligent and Mobile Agents for Telecoms and the Internet –Agents that Learn, Adapt and Discover –Logic and Agents

Information Infrastructure Aims: –provide a communication & management infrastructure for AgentLink Activities: –dedicated WWW site ( –regular published newsletter –mailing lists –etc

The Agent Portal

Web Resources Links to Conferences Sponsored Events Resources Member profiles Agent publications Agent software –Educational software Agent jobfinder IST calls Improved projects database Inter-network activities Standards activities

Newsletter

AgentLink Roadmap Online at: To distribute, mail

Agent Technology Roadmap Current state-of-the-art Short, medium and long-term predictions Technical challenges Community challenges Opportunities Living document: feedback sought

Views of Agents To support next generation computing through facilitating agent technologies As a metaphor for the design of complex, distributed computational systems As a source of technologies As simulation models of complex real-world systems, such as in biology and economics

Current situation Closed agent systems applied in specific environment Ad-hoc designs Predefined communications protocols and languages Scalability only in simulation

Short term to 2005 Use of semi-structured agent communication languages (such as FIPA ACL) Top-down design methodologies such as GAIA Scalability extended to predetermined and domain-specific environments

Medium term Use of agreed protocols and languages Standard, agent-specific design methodologies Open agent systems in specific domains (such as those in bioinformatics and e-commerce) More general scalability, to include arbitrary numbers and diversity of agents, in each such domain Bridging agents translating between domains

Long Term 2009-? Truly-open and fully-scalable multi-agent systems Across domains Agents capable of learning appropriate communications protocols upon entry to a system Protocols emerging and evolving through actual agent interactions.

FP6 Network of Excellence Agents underpin much of the FP6 vision! Expression of Interest submitted Full proposal to be developed Will draw on Roadmap Aim to integrate/structure research Continue to support technology transfer FP6 area on AgentLink web for information

Need and Relevance E-inclusion, health, e-business and e- government, electronic and mobile commerce, eWork systems, eLearning, complex problem solving Provision of basic computation models and techniques Ambient intelligence suggests component- oriented view Interactions between components, virtual organisations, etc.

Need and Relevance II New technologies for software and systems, control of complex distributed systems –Infrastructure through agent-based middleware –Methodologies and tools Knowledge technologies and digital content, intelligent interfaces –Interactions between agents –Interactions between agents and users

Current State Pivotal role in contributing to broader visions of Ambient Intelligence, Grid Computing, Semantic Web, etc. European strength is broad and deep Still requires integration, needs to avoid fragmentation, needs effective coordination Needs to support industry take-up and innovation

Technical Challenges Increase quality of agent systems to industrial standard Provide effective agreed standards to allow open systems development Provide infrastructure for open agent communities Develop reasoning capabilities for agents in open environments

Technical Challenges II Develop agent ability to adapt to changes in environment Develop agent ability to understand user requirements Ensure user confidence and trust in agents

Community Organisation Leverage underpinning work on similar problems in Computer Science: Object technology, software engineering, distributed systems Link with related areas in Computer Science dealing with different problems: Artificial life, uncertainty in AI, mathematical modelling

Community Organisation II Extend and deepen links with other disciplines: Economics, logic, philosophy, sociology, etc Encourage industry take-up: Prototypes, early adopters, case-studies, best practice, early training

Application Opportunities Ambient Intelligence Bioinformatics and Computational Biology Grid Computing Electronic Commerce Simulation Semantic Web

Research Areas negotiation and argumentation; agent-oriented software engineering; coalition formation; information agents; social interaction; agent based simulation; agent theories; agent communication languages; agent-mediated e-commerce; auctions; security and trust; biologically inspired computing; ontologies; application to manufacturing, transportation, finance, military domains, etc

Research Themes Interaction: Negotiation, argumentation, auctions, interaction protocols, market-based approaches, ebusiness. Information Infrastructure: middleware, mediators, ontologies, semantic web. Trust: security, reputation, norms. Cooperation: coordination, coalitions, virtual organisations. Grid, eScience. Agent Languages: communication, programming, coordination. Architectures: control architectures; multi-agent architectures, scalability, emergence. Semantics: logics, complexity. Methodologies: implementation. Decision making: reasoning and learning.

Activities Research Themes Cross-cutting actions Standards Case-studies Application-specific work Social aspects? Training activities –Summer School –training courses on eg development platforms Conference Support Roadmapping activity

Information needed Mail –Name –Organisation –Key research interests –Full names and numbers of Full-time researchers Full-time PhD students

For more information Dr Michael Luck Dept of Electronics and Computer Science University of Southampton Southampton SO17 1BJ United Kingdom Expression of interest AgentLink News 11 for EoI Roadmap Register interest: