1. IEEE FIPA @ Agentlink3 – TGF-CASA, September 2005, Budapest 1 The IEEE Computer Society FIPA Standards Committee (SC) Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents http://www.fipa.org Stefan Poslad, Queen Mary, University of London (Presenter) Michael Kerstetter, The Boeing Company Monique Calisti, Whitestein Technologies AG James Odell, James Odell Associates

2. IEEE FIPA @ Agentlink3 – TGF-CASA, September 2005, Budapest 2 Topics  A little FIPA history   Vision & Approach of the “new” IEEE FIPA SC  More detailed technical visions: Work groups & Study groups

3. IEEE FIPA @ Agentlink3 – TGF-CASA, September 2005, Budapest 3 FIPA ACL Model: rich shared communication semantics to support knowledge exchange 1.(Request … Book Room X(?)…) 2.(Agree (to the request)) 3.(Inform (booking complete)) We can think of this message as being in 2 parts: 1.Message Header: defines agent Combs protocols, e.g., request interaction, request speech act, sender address, receiver address etc 2.Message Payload (or content): 1.Defines content expression, e.g., register description X 2.Refers to Ontologies to define and interrelate terms such as X In practice agents can communicate using XML-based or other String based interfaces for the message headers and payload An Interaction of 3 messages ( of 3 different speech acts) speech acts

4. IEEE FIPA @ Agentlink3 – TGF-CASA, September 2005, Budapest 4 FIPA History: Activities ACL Msg Transport Agent Management 1997 APPS: PA, Travel, Audio-video, VPN Security, Mobility, Human-Agent Interaction, Ontology Service 1998-9 ACL Msg Transport Agent Management Nomadic ACL Interop Architecture 2000 Transport, AgentCities, DPMG, JCP, Security Architecture Agreement Mgt ACL Gateways 2001 Infrastructure: Ad-Hoc, Services, Security Communication : Ontology, Semantics Software Engineering: Interaction Protocol, Modeling, Methodology 2003 1995 Agent technologies useful, some mature, standardisation useful, standardise generic technologies; 2002 >20 Specs standardised 2005 IEEE FIPA SC formed

5. IEEE FIPA @ Agentlink3 – TGF-CASA, September 2005, Budapest 5 FIPA History: Achievements  Set of standard specifications massively deployed  Architecture to support agent-to-agent communication + middleware  Communication languages (FIPA ACL)  Interaction protocols: from single messages to complex transactions  Further outputs  Open source & commercial agent tool-kits, e.g., JADE + many plug-ins, e.g., Protégé Beans  Many projects, e.g., Agentcities global network of FIPA compliant platforms and services, etc., 2003 survey analysed ~80 public projects  JCP specification for agents, JAS, Java Agent Services (JSR00087)  AUML: originated in FIPA Modelling activity  JADE-Board – 5 telecom companies set up a forum to promote the JADE FIPA toolkit for mobile telecoms applications

6. IEEE FIPA @ Agentlink3 – TGF-CASA, September 2005, Budapest 6 Topics  A little FIPA history  Vision & Approach of the “new” IEEE FIPA SC   More detailed technical visions: Work groups & Study groups

7. IEEE FIPA @ Agentlink3 – TGF-CASA, September 2005, Budapest 7 IEEE FIPA SC Vision  The unifying vision for FIPA is organizational interoperability. Such a vision implies interoperability that among pervasive and ad-hoc societies, organizations, teams and individuals, both real and virtual that can:  comprise humans, robots, devices and software agents  include both static and dynamic relationships  engage in collaborative and competitive activities  act autonomously and/or under direction of other entities; and  inter-operate according to pre-determined, on-the-fly, and/or emergent protocols and procedures.

8. IEEE FIPA @ Agentlink3 – TGF-CASA, September 2005, Budapest 8 IEEE-FIPA Mission  Promote agents and agent-based application integration environments based on appropriate industry standards;  Promote a framework for compatible and independent development of applications;  Enable coordination among applications across heterogeneous networked systems;  Adopt a core of commercially available specifications of this framework and to promote international market acceptance & use;  Actively influence the future direction and development of these adopted specifications;  Foster the development of tools and applications that conform to and extend this framework and to provide a mechanism for certifying compliance with the adopted specifications;  Work with other standards groups that enable the FIPA SC mission through collaboration, bridging, and or reuse of the standards

9. IEEE FIPA @ Agentlink3 – TGF-CASA, September 2005, Budapest 9 IEEE-FIPA Approach  Strategic approach  Innovate  Reconcile/bridge  Migrate existing FIPA standards to IEEE  Tactics  Bottom-up self-organization  Top-down planning  Involvement of users, vendors, standards groups  Marketing and awareness (Reach out to the community)  Dual tracks—each with own working groups  Vertical track  Horizontal track

10. IEEE FIPA @ Agentlink3 – TGF-CASA, September 2005, Budapest 10 Approach  Organization  Local small communities (Light-weight footprint)  Collaborative workspaces  Global organization and meetings  Perspectives  Marketplace - what does the market want  Implementor driven - what do vendors and actual developers need/want  R&D - what are the technological gaps  Actions  Setup FIPA organization & Policies & P  Solicit and organize subgroups  Set up meetings (Conferences and non-conferences)  Elections  Beginning work on a standards road map ……

11. IEEE FIPA @ Agentlink3 – TGF-CASA, September 2005, Budapest 11 Approach  The old FIPA is not the new FIPA:  The original FIPA fit an important niche at its time  To succeed, FIPA needs to be adative  We are free to reinvent the organization (within IEEE context) — using both the old and the new.  Resist the “standardize it and they will come” attitude  Solicit the needs of the industry users  Need collaboration, not isolation  Start small, let it grow  Scale the tasks to the available involvement  Be organic

12. IEEE FIPA @ Agentlink3 – TGF-CASA, September 2005, Budapest 12 Topics  A little FIPA history  Vision & Approach of the “new” IEEE FIPA SC  More detailed technical visions: Work groups & Study groups   Agents & Web Services Interoperability Working Group (AWSI WG)  Human-Agent Interactions Work Group (HAI-WG)  Mobile Agents WG (MA-WG):  Methodology WG  P2P Nomadic Agent WG (P2PNA-WG  Review of FIPA Specifications Study Group (RoFS-SG) proposal

13. IEEE FIPA @ Agentlink3 – TGF-CASA, September 2005, Budapest 13 Agents & Web Services Interoperability Working Group (AWSI WG): Objectives  Agent interoperation with WS  Locate, negotiate and interact bi-directionally  Value addition to WS  Dialogues, semantics, interaction protocols  FIPA backward compatibility  “As much as possible”  Non-interference with WS standards  Keep existing WS specs and implementations  Utilize Semantic Web  RDF, OWL Contact: Hiroki Suguri, Comtec,suguri@comtec.co.jp

14. IEEE FIPA @ Agentlink3 – TGF-CASA, September 2005, Budapest 14 Service_Agent Offers_Simple_Service Simple_Service has_Skill_Set Participant_Skills Service_Skills definedBy Service_Profile definedBy Orchestration_Participant _Profile Blue indicates connection to OWL-S Green indicates work TBD AWSI WG: 1 older FIPA TC Services model

15. IEEE FIPA @ Agentlink3 – TGF-CASA, September 2005, Budapest 15 Human-Agent Interactions Work Group (HAI-WG): Objectives  To extend the current FIPA agent-agent standards to human-agent interaction.  The initial focus is on human-agent communications in the context of decision making.  Other contexts and broader issues of human-agent interactions will be considered in future years. Contact: John Yen, Pennsylvania State University, jyen@ist.psu.edu

16. IEEE FIPA @ Agentlink3 – TGF-CASA, September 2005, Budapest 16 Mobile Agents WG (MA-WG): Objectives  Starting from existing specifications, esp. FIPA specification 87 and OMG MASIF  Define new specifications for  efficient, reliable, and secure code and data relocation  location transparent communication  location tracking  infrastructure for agent server discovery  interoperability on run-time level  We will avoid specific techniques but propose generic protocols and processes  Specifications will be accompanied by reference implementations in the form of toolkit independent software components. Contact: Ulrich Pinsdorf, Fraunhofer-Institute IGD, Germany ulrich.pinsdorf@igd.fraunhofer.de

17. IEEE FIPA @ Agentlink3 – TGF-CASA, September 2005, Budapest 17 MA-WG: Open issues A lot of work was done in the last 10 years, but there are many open problems, e.g.:  Migration between heterogeneous platforms  Interoperability for mobile code  Security concerns of mobile code  Representation of mobile code  How to develop mobile agents? Design-Patterns? Mobile Agent UML?

18. IEEE FIPA @ Agentlink3 – TGF-CASA, September 2005, Budapest 18 Methodology WG: Objectives  Let the developer of a multi-agent system create his own methodology  Through assembling pieces of the process (method fragments) from a method base. :  Suited for the specific problem/system to be built  Not conflicting with his (development) environmental constraints  Coherent with his (or his group) knowledge and skills  Supported by a CASE tool  Using a standard modeling language Contact: Massimo Cossentino, Italian National Resource Councilcossentino@pa.icar.cnr.it

19. IEEE FIPA @ Agentlink3 – TGF-CASA, September 2005, Budapest 19 The Method Engineer analyzes the problem and the development context/people to deduce new methodology features Method Engineering: people, artifacts and tools The Method Engineer uses a CAME tool to compose the new methodology by reusing fragments from the repository The CAME tool is used to instantiate a methodology specific tool The System Designer using the CASE tool specifies and develops the agent solution

20. IEEE FIPA @ Agentlink3 – TGF-CASA, September 2005, Budapest 20 P2P Nomadic Agent WG (P2PNA-WG): Objectives  The objective is:  to define a specification for P2P Nomadic Agents, capable of running on small or embedded devices, and  to support distributed implementation of applications for consumer devices, cellular communications and robots, etc. over a pure P2P network.  This specification will:  leverage presence and search mechanisms of underlying P2P infrastructures such as JXTA, Chord, Bluetooth, etc.  propose the minimal required modifications of existing FIPA specifications to extend their reach to P2P Nomadic Agents. Contact: Bernard Burg,Panasonic, bernard.burg@research.panasonic.com

21. IEEE FIPA @ Agentlink3 – TGF-CASA, September 2005, Budapest 21 A P2PNA-WG Use Case: Home Environment Our life starts to be invaded by P2P nomadic devices We love it! because it:  provides a superior experience thanks to specialized devices in a competitive market  allows (free) P2P services  updates automatically  does not require computer literacy  gives an integrated environment However, to do this, there is a need of:  an intelligence on top of the existing P2P systems, Agents are the best solution because of their distributed reasoning and negotiation capabilities.  a P2P Nomadic Agent Standard IP Camera Plasma TV Mobile Phone Skype Phone HelloKittyROBO Home Entertainment System Rice Cooker Computer Answering system Alarm system These devices are network capable through WiFi, bluetooth, PLC …

22. IEEE FIPA @ Agentlink3 – TGF-CASA, September 2005, Budapest 22 Review of FIPA Specifications Study Group (RoFS-SG) proposal: objectives Provide a summary of the organization of the FIPA specifications Provide an analysis of the scope, assumptions, design issues for the specifications Make recommendations for possible specification maintenance / modifications to support new specification opportunities Provide an assessment of related standardization in others standards bodies. Contact Person: Stefan Poslad, Queen Mary, University of London, stefan.poslad@elec.qmul.ac.uk

23. IEEE FIPA @ Agentlink3 – TGF-CASA, September 2005, Budapest 23 RoFS-SG: e.g., Semantics review 1996 2003 1998 2002 Society: Speech Acts, BDI /SL model Content, SL Society: Speech act limits Mentalist Model limits Interactions, Symbolic: linguistic ????? 2001 Ontology: ACL- MetaModel Society: Institutions Standards ACL models in SL

24. IEEE FIPA @ Agentlink3 – TGF-CASA, September 2005, Budapest 24 Topics  A little FIPA history   Vision & Approach of the “new” IEEE FIPA SC   More detailed technical visions: Work groups & Study groups 

25. IEEE FIPA @ Agentlink3 – TGF-CASA, September 2005, Budapest 25 Useful references  FIPA Web-site http://www.fipa.org, soon to be migrated to IEEE web-site  Current FIPA email reflector: chat@fipa.org  IEEE-FIPA contacts: (Acting president):James Odell, James Odell Associates, email email@jamesodell.com Stefan Poslad, Queen Mary, University of London, stefan.poslad @elec.qmul.ac.uk Michael Kerstetter, The Boeing Company, michael.s.kerstetter@boeing.com Monique Calisti, Whitestein Technologies AG, mca@whitestein.com