IMPACT (Interactive Maryland Platform for
Agents Collaborating Together) provides a platform for the creation and
deployment of distributed, multiagent applications by building on top of
legacy and/or specialized codebases. In this talk, I will describe
the overall architecture of the IMPACT system, and outline how this
architecture (i) allows agents to be developed either from scratch, or
by extending legacy code-bases, (ii) allows agents to interact with one
another, (iii) allows agents to have a variety of capabilities (reactive,
autonomous, intelligent, mobile, replicating) and behaviors, and (iv) how
IMPACT provides a variety of infrastructural services that may be used
by agents to interact with one another. I will use a supply chain automation
example to illustrate the concepts and (if possible) will provide a demonstration.
The specific work described in the talk is joint work with Thomas Eiter.