Interoperability between autonomous systems like robot swarm or mobile software agents rely on efficient and seamless communication. Such mobile and dynamic environments pertain self-organization and self configuration of computing entities, a need for autonomic publishing and discovery of resources, and communication from and to outside world. Furthermore, such systems are attributed by heterogeneous communication capabilities of various computing entities. We take Web services approach for robot swarm based on robotic communication capabilities and propose a collaborative and decentralized services discovery and management middleware. Our approach provides a loose coupling in terms of space and time and uses both Internet based communication and RFID tags as message post boxes/relays for communication between robots when communication over the Internet is not available.
This paper describes an idea of securing mobile agents. The presented method protects all the code, the data and the execution state. The proposal is based on a zero-knowledge proof system and a secure secret sharing scheme. The paper also gives security analysis of the new method.
The recent developments in the mobile technology (mobile phones, middleware) created a need for new methods of protecting the code transmitted through the network. The oldest and the simplest mechanisms concentrate more on integrity of the code itself and on the detection of unauthorized manipulation. The newer solutions not only secure the compiled program, but also the data, that can be gathered during its journey and even the execution state. Some other approaches base on prevention rather than detection. This paper describes a new idea of securing mobile agents. The presented method protects all: the code, the data and the execution state. The proposal is based on a zero-knowledge proof system and a secure secret sharing scheme, two powerful cryptographic primitives. The paper also includes security analysis of the new method and comparison to currently most widespread solutions.
While the pervasiveness of wireless technology has provided a major impetus to mobile services,challenges the mobility of mobile services much.The characteristics of personal environments:heterogeneity,short distance between devices,and group mobility,are analyzed,and a decentralized directory storage method is proposed based on them for the autonomous organization of devices.It provides proper group mobility support and saves bandwidth,so that,improves the stability of system in personal environments.
The move from platform centric planning to network enabled capability poses not only organizational challenges but also challenges to the technology that will be needed to enable networked operations. Within this context, this paper outlines the central role that autonomous software agents, that coordinate their activities in flexible ways, have to play in providing robust system solutions. The major research challenges are addressed in order to take this promising technology forward and to make it suitable for NEC application. The interactions of the various autonomous agents within the system, that are necessary in order to achieve their individual and collective aims, can be analyzed and designed using techniques from Game Theory and Mechanism Design. Game theory is exploited because it has developed powerful tools for analyzing decision making in decentralized open systems with multiple autonomous agents. Recently, these tools have been tailored to computational settings to provide a principled foundation for building multiple agent systems. This tailoring gives rise to the field of computational mechanism design.
Zeng Guangping, Lu Qingling, Zhang Shumin, Ming Chen · 5 authors
Based on intelligent autonomous decentralized systems(IADS) and SoftMan,an organization structural model of softMan community is designed.SM.man management function,management and control strategy and coordination running mechanism are expounded.Characteristics of coordination control and forms of SoftMan Crowd are analyzed and partial-global planning(PGP) coordination control strategy is put forward.PGP may avoid task redundancy between nodes through intercommunion.Each node maintains its PGP and coordinates their behavior by PGP independently and asynchronously so as to accomplish the global task.
The recent developments in the mobile technology (mobile phones, middleware) created a need for new methods of protecting the code transmitted through the network. The proposed mechanisms not only secure the compiled program, but also the data, that can be gathered during its "journey". The oldest and the simplest methods are more concentrated on integrity of the code itself and on the detection of unauthorized manipulation. Other, more advanced proposals protect not only the code but also the execution state and the collected data. The paper is divided into two parts. The first one is mostly devoted to different methods of securing the code and protecting its integrity; starting from watermarking and fingerprinting, up to methods designed specially for mobile agent systems: encrypted function, cryptographic traces, time limited black-box security, chained-MAC protocol, publicly-verifiable chained digital signatures The second part presents new concept for providing mobile agents with integrity protection, based on a zero-knowledge proof system.
M. Jamshed, S. Khalique, Hiroki Suguri, Hafiz Farooq Ahmad · 5 authors
Grid is an ambitious and exciting global effort to develop an environment in which individual users can access computers, databases and experimental facilities simply and transparently, without having to consider where those faculties are located. Monitoring the behavior of the resources of a distributed system, especially grid, is necessary, both for determining the cause of performance problems, and for tuning the system, which results in optimized performance. However writing monitoring and management applications for grid resource is a complex task. This is due to the geographic distribution of resources and heterogeneous environments that are owned by different organizations. We have proposed architecture for autonomous grid node monitoring agent, to address the issues of complex resource monitoring and management. The architecture is based on grid monitoring architecture (GMA) and is autonomous as it provides functionality of equality, locality and self-containment, which are main components of autonomic controllability in any sub system as part of autonomous decentralized system (ADS) (K. Mori, 1993). The evaluation results of the proposed system proved the validity of the concept for achieving autonomous resource management in dynamic systems like grid
As a basic technology of distributed computing and mobile computation, mobile agent becomes a focus of researches. Due
to migration in Internet and then execution in many unknown hosts, a new security problem is presented: how to protect the moving
mobile agent? and how to protect the mobile agnet being attacked by some malicious hosts? For those problems, the security problem in
current mobile agent system is introduced. Security-authentication mechanism based on zero knowledge proof makes the mobile agent
system running more quick and easy.Moreover the system becomes more secure.
We consider the problem of deploying and managing federated services that run on federated systems spanning multiple collaborative organizations. In particular, we present a peer-to-peer framework targeted to the construction of self-managing services that automatically adjust the number of service components and their placements in response to changes in the system or client loads. Our framework is completely decentralized, depending only on a modest amount of loosely synchronized global state. More specifically, our framework is comprised of a set of per-node monitoring agents and per-service-component management agents that periodically exchange information about the state of the system and of the service with each other using a gossiping protocol. Each management agent then periodically searches for configurations that are better than the current one according to an application model and explicit performance and availability targets. On finding a better configuration, an agent will enact the new configuration after a random delay to avoid possible collisions. We evaluate our framework by studying a prototype UDDI service. We show that while agents act autonomously, the service rapidly reaches a stable and appropriate configuration in response to system dynamics.
This paper presents a new distributed decentralized architecture for the organization, command, control and communication (C/sup 3/) of multiple agent system which has to execute a mission, cooperatively and autonomously. This architecture can be applied to multiple unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs), to unmanned air vehicles (UAVs), as well as to unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs), unmanned space vehicles (USVs) or to any other types of autonomous cooperative multiple agent systems. The rationale for autonomous cooperative operation of a multiple agent system, stems from the need to execute critical missions under time, space resources and availability constraints, which are beyond the capability of a single agent to perform successfully. If the system agents are distributed geographically, cooperative operation is a reasonable approach. It supports share of information, share of resources, efficient resource allocation, context and situation driven responsiveness, robustness and flexibility under changing conditions, as well as redundancy. A key feature of the proposed architecture is that all the agents are identical in their sensing, information processing, decision making, communication and mission related capabilities. Thus, a failed agent can be functionally replaced by a peer agent. The architecture is both distributed and decentralized. It is implemented via four major building blocks, which are embedded within each agent.
Concerns use of spacecraft as autonomous coordinated teams. Generalized reasoning capability offered by advanced distributed software technology and AI can cope with unexpected events and uncertainty, and so close the loop of perception, decision and eventually deliberation. The team members play interchangeable roles and negotiate about the task. We present a multi-agent system to provide a high degree of autonomy and support for coordination among team members. We use JPL formation flying mission initial architectures as benchmark. Our target is to avoid inconsistencies/disagreements between two or more participants in a collaborative context, increase the system's fault tolerance in cases such as loss of a member while the system still operates reliably. We address cooperation between collaborating independent autonomous agents. In a top-down organization agents are coordinated hierarchically, where the agents at the top of the hierarchy make the majority of the intelligent group decisions. In a more structured but still hierarchical organization, lower-level agents exercise more intelligence. A lower-level agent can advance a plan for the others to follow, and a higher-rank agent decides on the best plans. Although more rigid, the centralized intelligence organization allows for less communication among agents, so is more straightforward to implement. The decentralized approach requires more communication, but the intelligence is truly distributed, which makes for a more flexible, adaptive and efficient organization.
In order to be competitive, telecommunications service providers need new technologies that facilitate the rapid introduction of new services and resolve the problems how to use the services safely. This paper introduces a network platform based on mobile agent and provides a security mechanism based on zero knowledge proof in the mobile communication system. In this way, service providers can provide the new services rapidly, expediently and safely.
Jan 1, 2001·8th World Congress on Intelligent Transport SystemsITS America, ITS Australia, ERTICO (Intelligent Transport Systems and Services - Europe)
The Telecommunications Advancement Organization of Japan (TAO) has put the concept of the Smart Gateway (SG) forward as a way of realizing safety and comfort for the drivers of Japan. The system will provide a variety of information, such as multimedia information that doesn't require a guarantee of transmission within a particular period, and cruising assistance information that does require a guarantee of transmission within a particular period, for driver's safety. The roadside system that is a component of the SG is discussed here. There are two requirements for this system: the first is step-by-step construction, because implementing it all at once would be both difficult and expensive. The second is an urgent-message guarantee that ensures the delivery of emergency information such as cruising-assistance information, etc., to drivers in real time. An autonomous decentralized system (ADS) will be used to meet the first requirement. A highly reliable Quality of Service (HQoS) control method that dynamically determines the priority level of data in response to drivers' needs and then supplies information, is proposed to meet the latter requirement. The architecture of this roadside system, and the HQoS control method based on ADS concepts, is discussed in this paper.
A new software technology, mobile agent technology (MAT), is gaining momentum in the field of telecommunications. Introduces a network platform based on mobile agent and provides a secure authentication mechanism based on zero knowledge proof in the mobile communication system. In this way, service providers can provide the new services rapidly, expediently and safely.
The first question addressed in the paper is "Why and how agent technology supports the design and implementation of Autonomous Decentralised Systems?" Subsequently, based on the main characteristics of the intelligent and mobile agents we assess the specific support agent technology collectively can offer. Finally a glimpse into the future of this technology is given. A critical evaluation of the agent technology vs. the traditional distributed object technology and RPC is undertaken throughout the paper in order to foresee possible introduction and evolution scenarios. The paper merely focuses on the aspects relevant to the providers of infoware technology, frameworks and products.
The autonomous decentralized systems (ADS) concept has been expanded to handle subsystem configuration on distributed computing environments effectively. The concept introduces the "group" as a logical set of subsystems based on application software or an organization. Subsystems on a "group" have an equal influence on the entire "group" and are hidden from the other subsystems. The "group" provides a simplified view of the system resource by hiding unrelated information from the users. Application management, monitoring and controlling services are provided on the basis of the "group". The expansion concept and a prototype tool ACP/EM are presented.>