Abstract

This thesis shows the design and development of a Mobile Agents System based on the standard of the Object Management Group (referred to as OMG) called MASIF [MASIF98] (Mobile Agent System Interoperability Facility).

It will first describe what an Agent is and, more specifically, what a Mobile Agent is. Since Mobile Agents are a very new part of computer science, the most accepted terminology and specification will be used in this thesis. The theoretical work is mainly done by the OMG, the FIPA (Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents) and universities doing research in this sector.

The next main topic is the description of the former version of the TAgents (Traveling Agents) platform. At the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, where this project is processed, an Agent System was already built when this thesis was started. Due to some reasons mentioned in the Section , it was decided to write a new System with the improved knowledge of Mobile Agents available now.

The main part of this document treats the new System. It will describe the requirements given to this work. Then, it will give an overview of the design developed in relation to the specification. This section will talk mainly about the module-based structure that helps keeping the platform itself highly extendable. The next section gives a detailed insight of the implementation of the TAgents System. It describes the main parts and classes used and how they work together. After describing the parts of the System, it will explain the developed services as there is a region registry, two communication services, and two administration services. These are the basic components needed to run an Agent System.

After this follows a manual on how to build your own Agent and System Agent (service) and about the requirements to build them. Since the goal of the System was to provide the programmer with an easy-to-extend basic Agent or System Agent, it should enable the reader to develop his own part of the TAgents Mobile Agent System.

The last section describes the work which has to be done in the future, as there are still some things missing to provide a full featured Mobile Agent System ready for use in a real world scenario. Some of the work has already begun and some will soon be addressed.