Architectural design of a multi-agent system for handling metadata streams

ABSTRACT

We have designed a multi-agent architecture to deliver metadata streams synchronously with multimedia streams over a wide-area network. To this end, we have devised a simple protocol for synchronising agents to a media clock. This protocol defines the concept of a deadline, after which servers can drop data because it can no longer reach clients in time. We also introduce a new concept of a contract as a first-class entity representing a successful subscription; a contract is used by agents as a session identifier during the navigation of streams. Quality of service is a vital element of this architecture because of the need to deliver metadata on time. As a result, our architecture supports various communication protocols, including \udp, \rmi, \ssl, or multicast. This resulted in a return to a more declarative form of speech acts, totally orthogonal to a notion of virtual communication channel used to manage the quality of service of communication.

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  I. Computing Methodologies
  I.2 ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
        I.2.11 Distributed Artificial Intelligence
            Subjects: Multiagent systems

Additional Classification:
  C. Computer Systems Organization
  C.2 COMPUTER-COMMUNICATION NETWORKS

General Terms:
Design, Performance, Standardization, Theory