Skip to main content

Agent Communication

  • Chapter
  • First Online:

Abstract

Traditional one-to-one communication à la Shannon as proposed in distributed systems is no longer the best means for communication between agents. Agents are interacting in the sense that they are communicating and expect some reactions from their messages. Agent communication, preferably named agent interaction, requires higher-level communication means such as an agent communication language and dialogue games to name a few. In this chapter, we present the different tools available for agent communication: agent communication languages, protocols, dialogue games, argumentation systems, and multi-party communication.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Buying options

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD   109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD   109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    http://www.cs.umd.edu/projects/plus/SHOE/cs.html

  2. 2.

    Note that attacking and rebutting are symmetric but not reflexive or transitive, while undercutting is neither symmetric, reflexive, nor transitive.

  3. 3.

    We ignore for now the fact that we might require different preference orders over beliefs and intentions and indeed that different agents will almost certainly have different preference orders, noting that the problem of handling a number of different preference orders was considered in [50] and [64].

  4. 4.

    The names stem from the study of persuasion dialogues—P argues “pro” some proposition, and C argues “con.”

References

  1. Shannon CE (1948) A mathematical theory of communication. Bell Syst Tech J 27

    Google Scholar 

  2. Drogoul A (1993) De la simulation multi-agents à la résolution collective de problème. Une étude de l’émergence de structures d’organisation dans les systèmes multi-agents, PhD thesis. Université Paris 6

    Google Scholar 

  3. Smith R, Davis R (1981) Framework for cooperation in distributed problem solving. IEEE Trans Syst Man Cybern 11(1):61–70

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Austin JL (1962) How to do things with words. Clarendon, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  5. Finin T, Fritzson R (1994) KQML - a language and protocol for knowledge and information exchange. In: Proceedings of the thirteenth international workshop on distributed artificial intelligence, Lake Quinalt, WA, July. pp 126–136

    Google Scholar 

  6. FIPA (2000). Specification. Foundation for intelligent physical agents, http://www.fipa.org/repository/fipa2000.html

  7. Searle J (1969) Speech acts: an essay in the philosophy of language. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Book  Google Scholar 

  8. FIPA (2002) FIPA SL Content language specification. Technical Report SC00008l, FIPA

    Google Scholar 

  9. Rao A, Georgeff M (1991) Modeling rational agents within a BDI architecture. In: Fikes R, Sandewall E (eds) Proceedings of knowledge representation and reasoning (KR&R 91). Kaufmann, San Mateo, Morgan, pp 473–484

    Google Scholar 

  10. Guerin F (2002) Specifying agent communication languages. PhD thesis, Dept. of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Imperial College

    Google Scholar 

  11. Sierra C, Jennings N, Noriega P, Parsons S (1998) A framework for argumentation based negotiation. In: Singh MP, Rao A, Wooldridge MJ (eds) (ATAL97) Intelligent agents IV, number 1365, LNAI. Springer, Berlin, pp 177–192

    Google Scholar 

  12. Singh MP (1998) Agent communication languages: rethinking the principles. IEEE Comput 31(12):40–47

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Cohen PR, Levesque HJ (1990) Rational interaction as the basis for communication. In: Cohen PR, Morgan J, Pollack ME (eds) Intentions in communication. MIT Press, Cambridge, pp 221–256

    Google Scholar 

  14. Gomez-Perez A, Corcho O, Fernandez-Lopez M (2003) Ontological engineering: with examples from the areas of knowledge management, E-Commerce and Semantic Web. Springer, Berlin

    Google Scholar 

  15. JADE information page. http://sharon.cselt.it/projects/jade

  16. Gutknecht O, Ferber J (2000) The MADKIT agent platform architecture. In: Agents workshop on infrastructure for multi-agent systems. pp 48–55

    Google Scholar 

  17. Kristina Lerman, Onn Shehory (2000) Coalition formation for large-scale electronic markets. Proc ICMAS 2000, pp 167–174, IEEE

  18. Baeijs C, Demazeau Y, Alvares L (1997) Sigma: application of multi-agent systems to cartographic generalization. In: Boman M, de Velde WV (eds) Multi-agent rationality: eighth european workshop on modelling autonomous agents and multi-agent world (MAAMAW-97), volume LNCS/LNAI 1038, Sweden, May. Springer, Heidelberg

    Google Scholar 

  19. McBurney P (2002) Rational interaction, PhD thesis. Department of Computer Science, University of Liverpool

    Google Scholar 

  20. Parsons S, McBurney P (2003) Argumentation-based communication between agents. In: Huget M-P (ed) Communication in multiagent systems, vol 2650, Lecture notes in artificial intelligence. Springer, Heidelberg, pp 164–178

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  21. Holzmann GJ (1991) Design and validation of computer protocols. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ

    Google Scholar 

  22. Huget M-P (2001) Une ingénierie des protocoles d’interaction pour les systèmes multi-agents, PhD thesis. Université Paris 9 Dauphine, June 2001

    Google Scholar 

  23. Huget M-P, Koning J-L (2003) Requirement analysis for interaction protocols. In: Marik V, Mueller J, Pechoucek M (eds) Proceedings of the third central and eastern european conference on multi-agents systems (CEEMAS 2003), Prague, Czech Republic, June 2003

    Google Scholar 

  24. Salomaa A (1969) Theory of automata. Pergamon, Oxford

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  25. Kuwabara K, Ishida T, Osato N (1995) AgenTalk: describing multiagent coordination protocols with inheritance. In: Seventh IEEE international conference on tools with artificial intelligence, Herndon, Virginia, November 1995. pp 460–465

    Google Scholar 

  26. Barbuceanu M, Fox MS (1995) COOL: a language for describing coordination in multiagent system. In: First international conference on multi-agent systems (ICMAS-95), San Francisco, USA, June 1995. AAAI Press, pp 17–24

    Google Scholar 

  27. Jensen K (1991) High-level petri nets, theory and application. Springer, Heidelberg

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  28. Cost RS, Chen Y, Finin T, Labrou Y, Peng Y (1999) Modeling agent conversation with colored Petri nets. In: Bradshaw J (ed) Autonomous Agents ‘99, Special workshop on conversation policies, May

    Google Scholar 

  29. El Fallah Seghrouchni A, Haddad S, Mazouzi H (1999) A formal study of interaction in multi-agent systems. Modelling autonomous agents in multi-agent Worlds (MAAMAW)

    Google Scholar 

  30. Booch G, Rumbaugh J, Jacobson I (1999) The unified modeling language user guide. Addison-Wesley, Reading, Massachusetts

    Google Scholar 

  31. Koning J-L, Huget M-P, Wei J, Wang X (2001) Extended modeling languages for interaction protocol design. In: Proceedings of agent-oriented software engineering (AOSE 2001), Montreal, Canada, May 2001

    Google Scholar 

  32. Huget M-P, Odell J, Bauer B (2004) The AUML approach. Methodologies and software engineering for agent systems. Kluwer

    Google Scholar 

  33. Fisher M, Wooldridge M (1994) Specifying and executing protocols for cooperative action. International working conference on cooperating knowledge-based systems (CKBS-94), Keele

    Google Scholar 

  34. Luck M, d’Inverno M (2003) Understanding agent systems. Springer, Berlin

    Google Scholar 

  35. Chu P-YM (1989) Towards automating protocol synthesis and analysis, PhD thesis. Ohio State University

    Google Scholar 

  36. Lacey T, DeLoach SA (2000) Automatic verification of multiagent conversations. In: Eleventh annual Midwest artificial intelligence and cognitive science conference, University of Arkansas, USA, April, 15–16

    Google Scholar 

  37. Huget M-P, Wooldridge M (2003) Model checking for ACL compliance verification. In: Sandholm T, Yokoo M (eds) Proceedings of the second international conference on autonomous agents and multi-agent systems (AAMAS 2003), Melbourne, Australia, July 2003

    Google Scholar 

  38. Wooldridge M (1999) Verifying that agents implement a communication language. In: Proceedings of the AAAI, Orlando, July 1999

    Google Scholar 

  39. Wooldridge M, Fisher M, Huget M-P, Parsons S (2002) Model checking multi-agent systems with MABLE. In: Proceedings of autonomous agents and multi-agent systems (AAMAS 02), Bologna, Italy, July 2002

    Google Scholar 

  40. Huget M-P, Koning J-L (2003) Interaction protocol engineering in multi-agent systems. In: Huget M-P (ed) Communication in multi-agent systems: background, current trends and future, number 2650 in LNCS/LNAI State of the Art Survey. Springer, Heidelberg

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  41. Davis R, Smith RG (1983) Negotiation as a metaphor for distributed problem-solving. Artificial Intell 20:63–109

    Article  Google Scholar 

  42. Sian SS (1991) Adaptation based on cooperative learning in multiagent systems. In: Demazeau Y, Müller JP (eds) Decentralized AI 2, Elsevier

    Google Scholar 

  43. Hamblin C (1970) Fallacies. Methuen and Co Ltd, London, UK

    Google Scholar 

  44. Levin J, Moore J (1978) Dialogue-games: metacommunications structures for natural language interaction. Cogn Sci 1(4):395–420

    Google Scholar 

  45. Bench-Capon T, Gelard T, Leng PH (2000) A method for the computational modelling of dialectical argument with dialogue games. Artific Intell Law 8:233–254

    Article  Google Scholar 

  46. Walton D, Krabbe E (1995) Commitment in dialogue: basic concepts of interpersonal reasoning, SUNY series in logic and language. State University of New York Press, Albany, NY

    Google Scholar 

  47. McBurney P, Parsons S (2003) Dialogue game protocols. In: Huget M-P (ed) Communication in multiagent systems, vol 2650, Lecture Notes in Computer Science—State of the Art. Springer, Berlin, pp 269–281

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  48. McBurney P, van Eijk R, Parsons S, Amgoud L (2003) A dialogue-game protocol for agent purchase negotiations. J Autonom Agent Multi-Agent Syst 7(3):235–273

    Article  Google Scholar 

  49. Amgoud L, Cayrol C (1998) On the acceptability of arguments in preference-based argumentation framework. In: Proceedings of the 14th conference on uncertainty in artificial intelligence. pp 1–7

    Google Scholar 

  50. Amgoud L, Parsons S (2001) Agent dialogues with conflicting preferences. In: Proceedings of the 8th International workshop on agent theories, architectures and languages (ATAL 2001). pp 1–15

    Google Scholar 

  51. Amgoud L, Maudet N, Parsons S (2000) Modeling dialogues using argumentation. In: Proceedings of the 4th International conference on multi-agent systems (ICMAS 2000). Boston, MA, IEEE Press. pp 31–38

    Google Scholar 

  52. Amgoud L, Parsons S, Maudet N (2000) Arguments, dialogue and negotiation. In: Proceedings of the 15th European conference on artificial intelligence (ECAI 2000). Berlin, Germany, pp 338–342

    Google Scholar 

  53. Parsons S, Wooldridge M, Amgoud L (2002) An analysis of formal interagent dialogues. In: Proceedings of the first international conference on autonomous agents and multi-agent systems (AAMAS 2002), Bologna, Italy, pp 394–401

    Google Scholar 

  54. Maudet N, Evrard F (1998) A generic framework for dialogue game implementation. In: Proceedings of the 2nd workshop on formal semantics and pragmatics of dialogue

    Google Scholar 

  55. Mackenzie J (1979) Question-begging in non-cumulative systems. J Philos Logic 8:117–133

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  56. McBurney P, Parsons S (2002) Games that agents play: a formal framework for dialogues between autonomous agents. J Logic Lang Inform 11(3):315–334

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  57. Dignum F, Vreeswijk G (2003) Towards a testbed for multi-party dialogues. In: Huget M-P, Dignum F (eds) AAMAS 2003 Workshop on agent communication language and conversation policies (ACL 2003), Melbourne, July 2003

    Google Scholar 

  58. Ricordel P-M, Pesty S, Demazeau Y (1999) About conversations between multiple agents. In: First international conference of central Eastern Europe on multi-agent systems (CEEMAS), St Petersbourg, June 1999

    Google Scholar 

  59. Traum D, Rickel J (2002) Embodied agents for multi-party dialogue in immersive virtual worlds. In: Proceedings of the first international conference on autonomous agents and multi-agent systems (AAMAS 2002), Bologna, Italy, July 2002

    Google Scholar 

  60. Huget M-P, Demazeau Y (2004) First steps towards multiparty communication. In: Dignum F, van Eijk R, Huget M-P (eds) Proceedings of the AAMAS 2004 workshop on agent communication (AC 2004), New York, USA, July 2004

    Google Scholar 

  61. Bocchi L, Ciancarini P (2003) A perspective on multiagent coordination models. In: Huget M-P (eds) Communication in multiagent systems, number 2650. Lecture notes in computer science—State of the Art. Springer, Berlin, pp 146–163

    Google Scholar 

  62. Haddadi A (1996) Communication and cooperation in agent systems: a pragmatic theory. In: Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol 1056. Springer, Berlin

    Google Scholar 

  63. Chopra A, Artikis A, Bentahar J, Colombetti M, Dignum F, Fornara N, Jones AJI, Singh M (2013) Research directions on agent communication. ACM Transact Intell Syst 4(2):1–23

    Google Scholar 

  64. Amgoud L, Parsons S, Perussel L (2000) An argumentation framework based on contextual preferences. In: Proceedings of the international conference on pure and applied practical reasoning. London, UK

    Google Scholar 

  65. Clarke E, Grumberg O, Peled D (2000) Model checking. MIT Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  66. Wooldridge M (2000) Reasoning about rational agents. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  67. Yolum P, Singh M (2002) Flexible protocol specification and execution: applying event calculus planning using commitments. In: Proceedings of the 1st international joint conference on autonomous agents and multi-agent systems (AAMAS 2002), Bologna, Italy

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Marc-Philippe Huget .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2014 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Huget, MP. (2014). Agent Communication. In: Shehory, O., Sturm, A. (eds) Agent-Oriented Software Engineering. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-54432-3_6

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-54432-3_6

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-54431-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-54432-3

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics