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An alternative communication system for agents.
Message passing systems differ from Blackboards in the following ways:
- Agents tend to know more about what each other.
- Knowledge is used to direct messages that a most likely to do the desired
task.
- Each agent possesses sufficient knowledge so that its expertise can be
employed without communication with other agents.
- Processed information then passed on.
A typical Message Passing System posses the following components:
- Problem solving agents
- -- domain specific experts.
- System agents
- -- command interpretation, error handling etc.
- Facilities
- -- built on functions that agents can use pattern
matching.
- Agent description database
- -- updated in system.
- Kernels
- -- one per processor to handle I/O, message routing etc.
The problem solving agent will maintain models of other agents. It will
typically model the following information about an agent:
- Name, Class and Location (Address).
- Relationship or role between the two agents.
- The agent's function or skills.
- The goal's or outcome of the agent
- The plan of the agent -- How it achieves its goals.
dave@cs.cf.ac.uk