Agent infrastructure for distributed control and interoperability

We are interested in providing an agent inftastructure for truly distributed control. Requirements include multiple language implementations so that this agent host environment can exist in both real-time controllers and Java-based devices, and the ability to operate with external agent systems. Our first infrastructure, the Autonomous Cooperative System (ACS), accomplished these goals, but presented other issues. Although ACS has been successfully deployed on commercial controllers, new releases of controllers will cause complications in the evolution of the software and adoption of future functionality. We need to establish a formal integration procedure of the agent functionality with the controllers and to transform the underlying system into a fully integrated and open heterogeneous system. This challenge implies changes to the controllers for the creation of the agents and changes that would radically affect the agent core. In this document, we discuss the requirements and results of that transformation.