JADE

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JADE

• Java Agent Development Framework
• An Overview

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Introduction - Basic

• JADE software framework to develop agent-based
  applications
• Complies with FIPA specifications for
  interoperable intelligent multi-agent systems.
• JADE is a middleware that enables faster
  time-to-market for developing multi-agent
  distributed applications.
• It is Open Source distributed under LGPL license.
• Fully developed in Java by TILAB (Italy).

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Introduction - Features

• Provides Agent life cycle management.
• Peer-to-Peer communication.
• White pages and yellow pages services.
• Provides a set of graphical tools that supports
  the debugging, management and monitoring phases.
• Support for agent code and execution state
  migration.

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JADE Architecture

• A JADE-based application is composed of a
  collection of active components called Agents.
• Each agent is a peer and has a unique name.
• Each running instance of the JADE runtime
  environment is called a Container as it can
  contain several agents.
• Each agent lives in a Container.
• The set of active containers is called a
  Platform.
• The Platform provides a homogeneous layer that
  hides to agents the complexity and the diversity
  of the underlying tires (h/w, OS)

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• One container plays the role of a Main
  Container (where AMS, DF live) to which all
  other containers must register as soon as they
  start.
• The main container differs from normal containers
  as it holds two special agents (automatically
  started when the main container is launched).
• Two Special Agents
• The AMS (Agent Management System) that provides
  the naming service and represents the authority
  in the platform.
• The DF (Directory Facilitator) that provides a
  Yellow Pages service by means of which an agent
  can find other agents providing the services he
  requires in order to achieve his goals.

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Internal architecture of the JADE run-time
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• Fig. JADE RMA Agent

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Programmers Point of View

• JADE provides a library of classes that
  programmers have to/can use to develop their
  agents.
• The Agent Class
• for creating a JADE agent
• setup(), getAID(), doDelete(), takeDown()
• The Behaviour Class
• for carrying out the actual tasks
• action(), done()
• The ACLMessage Class
• Format Agent Communication Language (ACL) as
  defined by FIPA
• Asyncronous message passing paradigm
• The DFService Class
• To publish and search for services through method
  calls.

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For further information

• http//jade.tilab.com