AGENT-BASED SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE FOR DYNAMIC AND OPEN ENVIRONMENTS

Abstract

The rapid growth of the network-centered (Internet and Intranet) computing environments requires new architectures for information gathering systems. Typically, in these environments, the information resources are dynamic, heterogeneous and distributed. In addition, these computing environments are open, where information resources may be connected or disconnected at any time. This paper presents an architecture for a multi-agent information gathering system. The architecture includes three types of agents: interface, broker and resource agents. The interface agents interact with the users to fulfill their interests and preferences. The resource agents access and capture the content of the information resources. The broker agents facilitate cooperation among the information and the resource agents to achieve their desired goals. This paper provides the agents' architecture, design and implementations that enable them to cooperate, coordinate and communicate with each other to gather information in an open and dynamic environment.