Self-assembling Agent System

Presentation 1Donald Lee

Overview

• Project Overview• Project Requirements• Project Plan• Cost Estimation• SQA Plan• Architecture Plan• Initial Prototype Demonstration• Risks and Unknowns• Question and Comments

Project Overview

• Goals– Develop a system that simulations agents to start up,

establish connections between other agents in the system and create organizations between those agents.

– Incorporate IPDS protocols and message parameters into the simulation.

– Create a web interface for easy access and flexibility to the user to monitor and evaluate each object in the simulation.

Project Overview cont.

• Motivation– The need to create agents on separate JVMs

(independent agents) as opposed to having everything in one application running on separate.

– Evaluate and monitor agents communication and forming of organizations.

– Use of database rather than XML files.

Project Requirements

• Database– Starting Database has been given by stakeholder.– Agent and Parser/Constructor component requires database contain

agent information.– Database also contains information about organizations and list of

connections.– Modifications will be made based on requirements in the next phases.

Project Requirements (cont.)

• Parser/Constructor– Parser

• Queries the database to gather list of agents who will participate in organization.

• Takes the list and identifies the type of agents that will be used in the simulation and the id of each agent.

– Constructor • Takes info from parser and constructs new JVM for each

agent.• Passes in the line argument, the type of agent and ID of

agent.

Project Requirements (cont.)

• Agent– Sends a live configuration update request (database querying) to get

additional information.– Construct web interface to allow users to see overview of an agent.– Start up a organization (acting as a master role).– Establish connection between other agents.– Receive/send requests to form new organizations.

• Simulator– Gets list of agents from constructor.– Constructs web interface to allow users to see an overview of the

entire simulation– Listens on message queues to show the messages being passed

between agents and organizations.

Project Plan

Cost Estimation

• COCOMO– Effort Applied (E) = – Development Time (D) =

• Project Estimations using COCOMO– Effort Applied (E) = = 11.068 – Development Time (D) = = 6.23 Months

COCOMO Cost DriversCost Drivers Rating Value

Product attributesRequired software reliability Nominal 1Size of application database Nominal 1Complexity of the product High 1.15Hardware attributes

Run-time performance constraints Nominal 1Memory constraints Nominal 1Volatility of the virtual machine environment High 1.15Required turnabout time Low 0.87

Personnel attributesAnalyst capability Nominal 1Applications experience Nominal 1Software engineer capability High 0.86Virtual machine experience High 0.9Programming language experience High 0.95Project attributesApplication of software engineering methods High 0.91Use of software tools Nominal 1Required development schedule Nominal 1

SQA Plan

• Project Management• Documentation• Standards and Practice• Reviews• Testing Requirements• Source Control, Deliverables• Risk Management

Architecture Plan

• Revised Vision Document• Revised Project Plan• Formal Specification for organization

creation/merging and message passing.• Architecture Design• Test Plan• Technical Inspections• Executable Architecture Prototype

Initial Prototype Demonstration

• Parser/Constructor component queries database for list of agents.

• Constructor creates new java application (JVM) for each agent.

• Agent in the new java app will queries database for additional agent information.

• Each JVM displays agent info via gui interface.

Risks and Unknowns

• Maintaining reliability in message passing between agents and organizations.

• Reliability of creating a large quantity of agents on separate JVMs and initializing web interfaces for each.

• Assimilating IPDS protocols/components into simulation.

Question and Comments?