???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
?
?
FIPA
(Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents)
Annual Report
for the IEEE Computer Society – Standards Activity Board
http://www.computer.org/portal/site/ieeecs/menuitem.c5efb9b8ade9096b8a9ca0108bcd45f3/index.jsp?&pName=ieeecs_level1&path=ieeecs/communities/standards&file=index.xml&xsl=generic.xsl&
?
?
?
Sponsor name:
FIPA (Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents)
Number of active members:? 32
Number of SAB meetings with your participation in the 12 months:? 2
Submitted last annual report (yes/no):? no (FIPA is a new group)
Number of active working groups: 4
Number of working group rosters submitted:? 0
Number of new standards in the last 12 months: 0
Scope:
FIPA is an IEEE Computer Society standards organization that promotes agent-based technology and the interoperability of its standards with other technologies.
FIPA, the standards organization for agents and multi-agent systems was officially accepted by the IEEE as its eleventh standards committee on 8 June 2005.
FIPA was originally formed as a Swiss based organization in 1996 to produce software standards specifications for heterogeneous and interacting agents and agent based systems.? Since its foundations, FIPA has played a crucial role in the development of agents standards and has promoted a number of initiatives and events that contributed to the development and uptake of agent technology. Furthermore, many of the ideas originated and developed in FIPA are now coming into sharp focus in new generations of Web/Internet technology and related specifications.
Established:
8 June 2005
Major "Hot" Projects:
Human-Agent Communications draft standards proposal
Review of pre-IEEE FIPA standards for migration to IEEE
Peer-to-Peer Nomadic Agents Reference Architecture Final draft
Mobile Agents draft standards proposal
2007
Planned Activities:
Mobile Agents standard
Agents and Web Services Interoperability White Paper
Peer-to-Peer Nomadic Agents Reference Architecture IEEE standard
Migration of pre-IEEE FIPA standards to IEEE
2006 Accomplishments:
The following subgroups have been formed and approved:
·????????
Mobile Agents Working Group (MA WG)
·????????
Agents and Web Services Interoperability Working Group (AWSI WG)
·????????
P2P Nomadic Agents Working Group (P2PNA WG)
·????????
Review of FIPA Specification Study Group (ROFS SG)
·????????
Human-Agent Communications Working Group (HAC WG)
?
The details for these groups and their accomplishments are as follows:
?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
·????????
Mobile Agents Working Group (MA WG)
The primary goal of this working group is to resume work on standards for mobile agents. Existing specifications will be improved and extended and latest research results and experiences from existing implementations will be incorporated. Along with specification proposals, the working group will develop reference implementations of protocols in the form of software components for agent toolkits.
http://www.fipa.org/subgroups/MA-WG.html
?
After a slow start, the group is now quite active.
?
-The number of meetings (physical or virtual) the WG had in 2006
The MA WG had one physical meeting at Edinburgh, on September 13th, with the Regional FIPA meeting. They plan to have a new meeting by November-December.
?
-The method of communicating with WG members
Up until now the MA WG have used e-mail mailing list. They plan to create a MA-WG-specific web site that will be used for information interchange. The site will also be used to inform potential new members about WG activities.
?
-Planned activities/deliverables for 2007
The group has been near inactive until the end of June (due to personal reasons, previous chair resigned).? The working group has made the following new plan for 2006/07:
o??????
September/06 to November/06: A draft proposal for Mobile Agents new standard will be written by a subgroup and will be sent by e-mail before the November-December meeting.
o??????
November-December/06: The meeting will be used to discuss about the document and divide efforts among members.
o??????
October/06 to February/07: A mobile agent platform state of the art will be written
o??????
May/07: second version of the standard. Starting point for reference implementations.
o??????
December/07: final version of the standard.
?
-Approximately how many people are active in the subgroup.
The mailing list has 19 members. At this time, about 10 of them are active in discussions.
?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
·????????
Agents and Web Services Interoperability Working Group (AWSI WG)
The primary objective of the proposed working group (WG), the IEEE FIPA Agent and Web Services Interoperability (AWSI) WG, is to fill the interaction gap between agents and web services. Agents should be able to locate and interact with web services seamlessly and vice versa.
A core team of members is actively working to compile a white paper based on submitted position papers. http://www.fipa.org/subgroups/AWSI-WG.html
?
-The number of meetings (physical or virtual) the WG had in 2006
Two Skype conferences.? A third one is to be held next week.? No physical meeting.
?
-The method of communicating with WG members
E-mail and Skype conference.
We communicate with the group members using the Yahoo message board. The chair and co-chairs communicate once every two weeks via instant messages conferences.
?
-Planned activities/deliverables for 2007
The group was revived a couple of months ago after a long spell of inactivity. The chairs and co-chairs are working on an AWSI White Paper summarizing the groups efforts, findings, and plans to be submitted to the AAMAS 2007 Industrial Track. This paper is a planned deliverable for November 2007.
?
-Approximately how many people are active in the subgroup.
Six members.
?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
·????????
Peer-to-Peer Nomadic Agents Working Group (P2PNA WG)
The objective is to define a specification for P2P Nomadic Agents, capable of running on small or embedded devices, and to support distributed implementation of applications for consumer devices, cellular communications and robots, etc. over a pure P2P network. This specification will leverage presence and search mechanisms of underlying P2P infrastructures such as JXTA, Chord, Bluetooth, etc. In addition, this working group will propose the minimal required modifications of existing FIPA specifications to extend their reach to P2P Nomadic Agents. Potential application fields for P2P Nomadic Agents are healthcare, industry, offices, home, entertainment, transport/traffic.
The working group is active.? IT has produced a P2PNA Reference Implementation as scheduled and are currently testing it. http://www.fipa.org/subgroups/P2PNA-WG.html
?
-The number of meetings (physical or virtual) the WG had in 2006
No physical meeting since January 2nd, however there is frequent email sent among the participants.
-The method of communicating with WG members
They communicate by sending the code between chairs and co-chairs, for test
?
-Planned activities/deliverables for 2007
The P2PNA WG plans to release the reference architecture before the end of 2006. To achieve that, the reference architecture must be tested, IPR issues cleared, and appropriate logistics in place prior ?to release the Reference Implementation?? Once this is done, the WG has reached its objectives and will likely seek standardization of the reference architecture my mid 2007.
-Approximately how many people are active in the subgroup.
Ten members.
?
?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
·????????
Review
of
FIPA Specification
Study Group (ROFS SG)
The primary goal is to review the existing pool of 25 standard specifications, a related critique of these specifications and an analysis of specifications. It also in its remit covers the specifications that did not make it to standard level. This review, reflecting also on the context of the development of the FIPA specifications can help FIPA to decide whether or not to upgrade the FIPA
.
After a slow start, the group is now quite active.
http://www.fipa.org/subgroups/ROFS-SG.html
?
-The number of meetings (physical or virtual) the WG had in 2006
The ROFS Study Group had one physical meeting at Edinburgh, on September 13th, with the Regional FIPA meeting, this was co-hosted with he CIA 2006 (Cooperative Intelligent Agents) workshop.
A 2nd meeting is planned to be co-hosted with the EUMAS workshop CASA Tech. Forum Group in Lisbon on the 13th of December 2006..
?
-The method of communicating with WG members
Primarily e-mail and two physical meetings.
?
-Planned activities/deliverables for 2007
ROFS SG has released two major studies via its web-site
·????????
A history of FIPA document – 25, 000 words
·????????
A Review of the FIPA specs. - a number of interim versions of FIPA Specification Reviews.? Version 0.7 is currently available at
www.fipa.org/subgroups/ROFS-SG-docs/ROFS-Doc.pdf
.? A final review and recommendation is due by the end of 2006.
-Approximately how many people are active in the subgroup.
Five members.
?
?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
? Human-Agent Communications Working Group (HAC WG)
The primary goal of the HAC WG is to produce one or more IEEE standards that extend the current FIPA performatives for human agent communications.? Even though current FIPA agent communication language can be applied to human agent communications, they were not designed for communications in which agents assist human in various contexts (e.g., decision makings). An extended set of performatives for human agent communications can facilitate the application of agent technologies to domains that involve agents assisting human regarding decision makings. http://www.fipa.org/subgroups/HAC-WG.html
?
(Group did not report for this year.? Possible reorganization under way.)