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
IEEE FIPA @ Agentlink3 – TGF-CASA
, September 2005, Budapest
1
Topics

A little FIPA history 

Vision & Approach of the “new” IEEE FIPA SC

More detailed technical visions: Work groups & Study
groups
IEEE FIPA @ Agentlink3 – TGF-CASA
, September 2005, Budapest
2
FIPA ACL Model: rich shared communication semantics to support
knowledge exchange
speech acts
1.
2.
3.
(Request … Book Room X(?)…)
(Agree (to the request))
(Inform (booking complete))
An Interaction of 3 messages ( of
3 different speech acts)
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
IEEE FIPA @ Agentlink3 – TGF-CASA
, September 2005, Budapest
3
FIPA History: Activities
2005
IEEE FIPA SC formed
Software Engineering:
Communication:
2003 Ontology, Semantics Interaction Protocol,
2002
Modeling, Methodology
>20 Specs standardised
2001 ACL
2000
1998-9
1997
1995
Agreement
Mgt
ACL
ACL
Infrastructure: Ad-Hoc,
Services, Security
Architecture Gateways Transport, AgentCities,
DPMG, JCP, Security
Nomadic
Agent
Management
Interop Architecture
Msg
Transport
Agent Management
Security, Mobility, Human-Agent
Interaction, Ontology Service
APPS: PA, Travel,
Audio-video, VPN
Agent technologies useful, some mature, standardisation useful,
standardise generic technologies;
ACL
Agent Management Msg Transport
IEEE FIPA @ Agentlink3 – TGF-CASA
, September 2005, Budapest
4
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
IEEE FIPA @ Agentlink3 – TGF-CASA
, September 2005, Budapest
5
Topics

A little FIPA history

Vision & Approach of the “new” IEEE FIPA SC 

More detailed technical visions: Work groups & Study
groups
IEEE FIPA @ Agentlink3 – TGF-CASA
, September 2005, Budapest
6
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.
IEEE FIPA @ Agentlink3 – TGF-CASA
, September 2005, Budapest
7
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
IEEE FIPA @ Agentlink3 – TGF-CASA
, September 2005, Budapest
8
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
IEEE FIPA @ Agentlink3 – TGF-CASA
, September 2005, Budapest
9
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
…

IEEE FIPA @ Agentlink3 – TGF-CASA
, September 2005, Budapest
10
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

IEEE FIPA @ Agentlink3 – TGF-CASA
, September 2005, Budapest
11
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
IEEE FIPA @ Agentlink3 – TGF-CASA
, September 2005, Budapest
12
Agents & Web Services Interoperability Working Group (AWSI
WG): Objectives

Agent interoperation with WS


Value addition to WS


“As much as possible”
Non-interference with WS standards


Dialogues, semantics, interaction protocols
FIPA backward compatibility


Locate, negotiate and interact bi-directionally
Keep existing WS specs and implementations
Utilize Semantic Web

RDF, OWL
Contact: Hiroki Suguri, Comtec,
IEEE FIPA @ Agentlink3 – TGF-CASA
, September 2005, Budapest
suguri@comtec.co.jp
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AWSI WG: 1 older FIPA TC Services
model
Service_Agent
Offers_Simple_Service
has_Skill_Set
has_Skill_Set
Participant_Skills
Simple_Service
definedBy
Service_Skills
definedBy
Orchestration_Participant
_Profile
Service_Profile
Blue indicates
connection to OWL-S
IEEE FIPA @ Agentlink3 – TGF-CASA
, September 2005, Budapest
Green indicates work TBD
14
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
IEEE FIPA @ Agentlink3 – TGF-CASA
, September 2005, Budapest
15
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

IEEE FIPA @ Agentlink3 – TGF-CASA
, September 2005, Budapest
16
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?
IEEE FIPA @ Agentlink3 – TGF-CASA
, September 2005, Budapest
17
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 Council
cossentino@pa.icar.cnr.it
IEEE FIPA @ Agentlink3 – TGF-CASA
, September 2005, Budapest
18
Method Engineering:
people, artifacts and tools
The
Method
The
CAME
tool is
The
System
Engineer
uses the
a
Engineer
analyzes
used
to instantiate
Designer
using
tool
to
the
problem
aCAME
methodology
CASE
tooland
compose
the
new
thespecifies
development
specific
tool
and
methodology
by
context/people
to
develops
the agent
reusing
fragments
deduce
new
solution
from
the repository
methodology
features
IEEE FIPA @ Agentlink3 – TGF-CASA
, September 2005, Budapest
19
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,
IEEE FIPA @ Agentlink3 – TGF-CASA
, September 2005, Budapest
bernard.burg@research.panasonic.com
20
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
Mobile Phone
Skype Phone
Computer
HelloKittyROBO
Plasma TV
Rice Cooker
Answering system
Alarm system
Home Entertainment System
These devices are network capable through WiFi, bluetooth,
PLC …
IEEE FIPA @ Agentlink3 – TGF-CASA
, September 2005, Budapest
21
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
IEEE FIPA @ Agentlink3 – TGF-CASA
, September 2005, Budapest
22
RoFS-SG: e.g., Semantics review
1996
Society:
Speech Acts,
BDI /SL
model
Content, SL
1998
2001
2002
Society:
Speech act
limits
Ontology:
Mentalist
Model limits
ACLMetaModel
Interactions,
Society:
Institutions
IEEE FIPA @ Agentlink3 – TGF-CASA
, September 2005, Budapest
2003
Standards
ACL
models in
SL
Symbolic:
linguistic
?????
23
Topics

A little FIPA history 

Vision & Approach of the “new” IEEE FIPA SC 

More detailed technical visions: Work groups & Study
groups 
IEEE FIPA @ Agentlink3 – TGF-CASA
, September 2005, Budapest
24
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
IEEE FIPA @ Agentlink3 – TGF-CASA
, September 2005, Budapest
25