Motivation

The Mobile Agent technology is a very new part of computer science. Its origin is to be found in the Agents development which goes back a few years. Nowadays, one can already see some commercial products of this sector like Grasshopper[IKVG] and Gossip[GOSSIP].

Some universities are also developing Mobile Agent Systems in different languages. To mention, but a few, there are the Ara platform for Mobile Agents [ARA] and D`Agents [DAGENTS]. But these platforms are written in TCL/TK or other languages different from Java [JAVA]. In order to build a platform written in Java with open source for everyone (LGPL) [FSF], the TAgents (Traveling Agents) project was started in 1999 at the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. The main purpose was to build an environment to support research in the sector of Mobile Agents with a good platform available to start with.

The main advantage of Mobile Agents is the smaller use of bandwidth or, more generally, telecommunication infrastructure. Since the backbone of the internet is getting improved in a very fast way the access methods for the end user are still limited to a small bandwidth (most 56kbps through analog modems). There are upcoming faster possibilities like ADSL [ADSL] or Cable Modems, but the main trend is that of wireless communication, especially through mobile phones, where there is once again a small bandwidth and no guarantee for a continuous connection. These are the main fields where Mobile Agents have a big advantage due to their concept of working locally on the server and not being dependent on a connection. Another aspect is the cost of a connection, for example in relation to the upcoming protocol UMTS [UMTS] for mobile phones, which will be through high costs for licenses and infrastructure, probably very expensive for the consumer. With Mobile Agents you just have to be connected to send your personal Agent and to call him back. This can save a lot of money when having to search and acquire a lot of information.