Interaction Contortion a Distributed Multiagent System

In a distributed multiagent framework, the capabilities of each agent are known to other agents. Namely, each agent in a multiagent society is aware of what agents are available in the whole society, which is able to solve a query, and how to contact them. This characteristic leads to the simplicity in controling both local and remote interactions among agents by using a fixed form for communication packes. This paper presents methods for controlling interactions among agents in this distributed multiagent frame-work. Agent interactions are described within the platform of MASCOT that is a tightly coupled multiagent system developed for the role of a computer secretary. A frame-like form of a commumication packet is defined, and protocols for message exchanges are presented. Also, ascenarios given to demonstrate how the communication mechanism controls agent intercations in MASCOT.