Multi - Agent Platforms on Smart Devices : Dream or Reality ?

Due to the emergence of Internet and embedded computing, humans will be more and more faced to an increasing intrusion of computing in their day-to-day life by what it is called now smart communicating objects. Agents’ characteristics like pro-activeness, autonomy and sociability and the inherent distributed nature of multi-agent systems make them a promising tool to use in the smart devices applications. This paper presents an overview of multi-agent platforms created for use on small devices (i.e. devices with limited computing power) and for each multi-agent platform reviewed we try to identify what are its main characteristics and architectural concepts. The utility of using multi-agent platforms or FIPA-compliant ones is also brought into discussion.