The Interoperability Problem: Bringing together Mobile Agents and Agent Communication Languages

Interoperability is a central issue for both the mobile agents community and the wider agents community. Unfortunately, the interoperability concerns are different between the two communities. As a result, inter-agent communication is an issue that has been addressed in a limited manner by the mobile agents community. Agent communication languages (ACLs) have been developed as tools with the capacity to integrate disparate sources of information and support interoperability but have achieved limited use by mobile agents. We investigate the origins of the differences of perspective on agent-to-agent communication, examine the reasons for the relative lack of interest in ACLs by mobile agents researchers and explore the integration of ACLs into mobile agents frameworks. Copyright 1999 IEEE. Published in the Proceedings of the Hawaii International Conference On System Sciences, January 5-8, 1999, Maui, Hawaii.