Developing Multi-agent E-Commerce Applications with JADE

Abstract

Agent technology has been claimed to be a promising tool for creating e-commerce applications. To develop a multi-agent e-commerce system effectively, the developers have to deal with several issues such as agent characteristics, agent functionalities, protocols, communication, cooperation and coordination. JADE (Java Agent Development Environment), an open source software framework, is currently the state-of-the-art tool used for developing multi-agent systems. In this paper, our aim is to present our experience in designing and developing an e-commerce multi-agent system with JADE. Our objective is realised through the presentation of the analysis, design and implementation phases of an agent software system we currently develop in the context of travel industry. We will also discuss some lessons we have learned in using the JADE platform.