An Agent Framework for Effective Data Transfer Stijn Bernaer Patrick De Causmaecker Joris Maervoet Greet Vanden Berghe ECUMICT 2004 Gent, 1-2 April 2004

Introduction Disciplines Case studies Motivation Agent organisation Conclusion KaHo Sint-Lieven – Dpt. Industrial Engineering – IT Research Group Framework for Effective Data Transfer  FrEDT is a generic agent organisation that manages client-server communication in a wireless environment  Runs on mobile devices with limited capacity  Based on 3 case studies  Still in development 

Introduction Disciplines Case studies Motivation Agent organisation Conclusion KaHo Sint-Lieven – Dpt. Industrial Engineering – IT Research Group Agent architecture Programming Platforms Operating Systems Agent Platforms Wireless technology Platforms FrEDT Disciplines 

Introduction Disciplines Case studies Motivation Agent organisation Conclusion KaHo Sint-Lieven – Dpt. Industrial Engineering – IT Research Group Wireless communication technology  2.5G: 2G extensions for higher bitrates  Move from phone-oriented to data-oriented networks  Move from circuit-switched to packet-switched data  Average rates - GSM: 9.6 kbps - HSCSD: 28.8 kbps - GPRS: 40 kbps - UMTS: 384 kbps 

Introduction Disciplines Case studies Motivation Agent organisation Conclusion KaHo Sint-Lieven – Dpt. Industrial Engineering – IT Research Group Agents  An agent is an encapsulated computer system, situated in some environment, and capable of flexible autonomous action in that environment in order to meet its design objectives (Jennings)  Agent interaction is inevitable to achieve individual objectives and to manage inter- dependencies (Jennings) 

Introduction Disciplines Case studies Motivation Agent organisation Conclusion KaHo Sint-Lieven – Dpt. Industrial Engineering – IT Research Group Agents  A multi-agent system (MAS) is an organisation of several agents that act and interact  The agents in a MAS perform particular roles and obey particular norms and regulations  Agents are re-active, autonomous, pro-active, continuous and persistent, social, learning, mobile 

Introduction Disciplines Case studies Motivation Agent organisation Conclusion KaHo Sint-Lieven – Dpt. Industrial Engineering – IT Research Group Platforms for mobile devices Programming Platforms Personal Java Java 2 Micro Edition (J2ME) Operating Systems Symbian OS Palm OS Windows CE (Pocket PC) Agent Platforms AgentLight µFIPA-OS JADE-LEAP Grasshopper 

Introduction Disciplines Case studies Motivation Agent organisation Conclusion KaHo Sint-Lieven – Dpt. Industrial Engineering – IT Research Group Case 1 – Transfer of geographical data  Central geographical database  Mobile employees create Update Reports (UR)  Employees need to transfer these UR’s  Wireless synchronisation process between local and central Update Report DataBase (URDB)  Employees need the most recent Update Reports on regions that will be explored in the near future (pro-active)  Agents regulate the data traffic 

Introduction Disciplines Case studies Motivation Agent organisation Conclusion KaHo Sint-Lieven – Dpt. Industrial Engineering – IT Research Group Case 2 – Supporting people with non- congenital brain injuries  People who have problems with coordinating and organising their daily life  Complete database on the supervisor’s computer and a subset of the data on the smartphone/PDA of the patient  Day’s schedule, addresses, instructions, itineraries, shopping lists  Optionally: mobile device for supervisor  Agents act as assistants 

Introduction Disciplines Case studies Motivation Agent organisation Conclusion KaHo Sint-Lieven – Dpt. Industrial Engineering – IT Research Group Case 3 – Transfer of medical reports and analyses  Mobile employees visit companies for risk analysis, ergonomic analysis and medical inspection  Employees use a procedure handbook and a program to manage analysis records on their notebook  This book has to be updated regularly and changed records need to be exchanged with a central databank  Agents are connection-aware and run in background 

Introduction Disciplines Case studies Motivation Agent organisation Conclusion KaHo Sint-Lieven – Dpt. Industrial Engineering – IT Research Group Motivation FrEDT  Case studies:  Client-server synchronisation mechanism  Transactions have different levels of urgency  Congestion should be avoided  Priority-based decision-making system  Negotiation about data transactions with certain priority 

Introduction Disciplines Case studies Motivation Agent organisation Conclusion KaHo Sint-Lieven – Dpt. Industrial Engineering – IT Research Group Why agents?  Component-based environment  To assist the end user  Asynchronity = delay independence  Autonomy, continuity  Adaptivity, proactivity  Negotiation 

Introduction Disciplines Case studies Motivation Agent organisation Conclusion KaHo Sint-Lieven – Dpt. Industrial Engineering – IT Research Group FrEDT: extensions  Connection awareness and reasoning about the connection (costs?)  Detachebility: the actual transfer does not need to be ACL (Agent Communication Language)  Fault-tolerance and security 

Introduction Disciplines Case studies Motivation Agent organisation Conclusion KaHo Sint-Lieven – Dpt. Industrial Engineering – IT Research Group Agent organisation  RETSINA architecture: interface-, task and database agents  Framework developed in JADE (Java Agent DEvelopment Framework) with LEAP (Lightweight Extensible Agent PLatform) extensions  J2SE  Personal Java  J2ME: MIDP/CLDC 

Introduction Disciplines Case studies Motivation Agent organisation Conclusion KaHo Sint-Lieven – Dpt. Industrial Engineering – IT Research Group Conclusion  FrEDT is suited for effective datatransfer in different situations  FrEDT joins several disciplines: agents, mobile devices and wireless communication technology  Further research:  Fault-tolerance and security  Application to the cases 