Abstract
There is an emerging desire among agent researchers to move away from developing point solutions to point problems in favour of developing methodologies and tool-kits for building distributed multi-agent systems. This philosophy has led to the development of the ZEUS agent building tool-kit, which facilitates the engineering of collaborative agent applications through the provision of a library of agent-level components and an environment to support the agent building process. The ZEUS tool-kit is a synthesis of established agent technologies with some novel solutions that provide an integrated environment for rapid software engineering of collaborative agent applications.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Ndumu D T and Nwana H S: 'Research and development challenges for agent-based systems', IEE Proceedings on Software Engineering, 144, No1, pp 2—10 (1997), also available on-line from: http:// www.labs.bt.com/projects/agents/
Nwana H S: 'Software agents: an overview', The Knowledge Engineering Review, 11, No3, pp 205—244 (1996), also available online from: http://www.labs.bt.com/projects/agents/
Etzioni O and Weld D: 'A softbot-based interface to the Internet', Communications of the ACM, 37, No7, pp 72—76 (1994).
Maes P: 'Agents that reduce work and information overload', Communications of the ACM, 37, No7, pp 31—40 (1994).
Davison R G, Hardwicke J J and Cox M D J: 'Applying the agent paradigm to network management', BT Technol J, 16, No3, pp 86—93 (July 1998).
Ndumu D T, Collis J C and Nwana H S: 'Towards desktop personal travel agents', BT Technol J, 16, No3, pp 69—78 (July 1998).
Finin T and Labrou Y: 'KQML as an agent communication language', in Bradshaw J M (Ed): 'Software agents', MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass, pp 291—316 (1997).
The foundation for intelligent physical agents: 'The FIPA'97 Specification', available on-line from: http://drogo.cselt.it/fipa/spec/ fipa97/fipa97.htm
O'Brien P D and Nicol R C: 'FIPA — towards a standard for intelligent agents', BT Technol J, 16, No3, pp 51—59 (July 1998).
Ndumu D T, Nwana H S, Lee L C and Haynes H R: 'Visualisation and debugging of distributed multi-agent systems', to appear in Applied Artificial Intelligence.
Collis J C and Lee L C: 'Building Electronic Market-places with the ZEUS Tool-kit', Proceedings of the 1998 Agent Mediated Electronic Commerce (AMET-98) Workshop, Autonomous Agents' 98, pp 17— 32 (1998), available on-line from: http://www.labs.bt.com/projects/ agents/
Ingrand F F, Georgeff M P and Rao A S: 'An architecture for real time reasoning and control', IEEE Expert, 7, No6 (1992).
Chauhan D and Baker A D: 'JAFMAS: A multi-agent application development system', Proceedings Autonomous Agents' 98, Minneapolis, MN, pp 100—107 (1998).
Bradshaw J M, Dutfield S, Benoit P and Woolley J D: 'KAoS: Toward an industrial strength open agent architecture', in Bradshaw J M (Ed): 'Software Agents', MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass, pp 375—418 (1997).
Bradshaw J M et al: 'Mediating representations for an agent design toolkit', KAW' 98, Banff Canada (April 1998).
Kendall E A, Murali Krishna P V, Pathak C V and Suresh C B: 'An application framework for intelligent and mobile agent systems', to appear as chapter in Fayad M, Schmidt D C and Johnson R (Eds): 'Object Oriented Application Frameworks, Vol II', Wiley & Sons (1999).
Rao A S and Georgeff M P: 'BDI agents: from theory to practice', Proceedings First International Conference on Multi-Agent Systems (ICMAS-95), San Francisco, pp 312—319 (June 1995).
About this article
Cite this article
Collis, J.C., Ndumu, D.T., Nwana, H.S. et al. The ZEUS Agent Building Tool-kit. BT Technology Journal 16, 60–68 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1009673714049
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1009673714049