Abstract for Benjamin Falchuk and Ahmed Karmouch
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Abstract for Benjamin Falchuk and Ahmed Karmouch
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Description of the mobile agent project
The objective of this work is to develop intelligent personal agents for the delivery of multimedia documents over heterogeneous networks to heterogeneous devices (including cellular phones, graphical workstations, laptops, etc.). The intent is to develop and spin off technology that supports multimedia content for mobile workers. Users of networked multimedia applications are demanding seamless environments. Similarly, users of wireless devices such as pagers and cellular phones want access to their multimedia messages that encapsulate information off the Web. For users to manage their applications transparently, they require the services of intelligent software assistants in the form of personal agents. These intelligent agents will help users mediate between devices with diverse capabilities ranging from graphical desktop computers to cellular telephones. This project aims to define and implement lightweight personal agents that work in off-the-shelf computing environments (such as Lotus Notes or the WWW) and mediate between devices on heterogeneous networks be they ATM, wireless telephone or traditional LANs. It will introduce device agents that can cooperate with personal agents to deliver multi-modal (fax, e-mail, voice mail) multimedia (text, voice, video) messages. It will require the definition of a new approach to multimedia document content so that the content may be tailored to the terminating device.=20
This work will draw on the expertise of the Multimedia Information Research Laboratory at University of Ottawa. This laboratory has developed MEDIABASE, a Networked multimedia database used by personal agents that access electronic news and distance learning information over high speed networks. The project will also draw on the expertise of the Seamless Personal Information Networking group at IIT who are developing intelligent personal agents for Seamless Messaging and Collaborative Work. Finally, it is expected to create spin-off technology that can be used to leverage networking products of Mitel and a Small Company. In addition, the funding from the Industrial grouping of the Telecommunications Research of Ontario (TRIO) directed at the Industrial partners will ensure that the technology is disseminated to approximately 30 other TRIO members.
The focuses of the current prototype are as follows: a visual iconic language to allow novice end-users to program and inject mobile agents onto the network, inter-agent communication protocols, and transfer mechanisms that allow agents and their associated data to travel error-free across the network between Agent Execution Environments (AEE's). Prototype AEE's are being developed using the Java language.