Mobile Agent Framework Research Articles

A Novel SMMS Teleoperation Control Framework for Multiple Mobile Agents With Obstacles Avoidance by Leader Selection

Teleoperation of multiple agents has the unique advantage to complete tasks with wide range and is an effective solution to help agents avoid obstacles with human intelligence, especially when encounters the local-minima problem. In this article, a novel nonlinear single-master–multislave (SMMS) teleoperation control framework is proposed for multiple mobile agents to achieve obstacles avoidance under delays, nonlinearities, various uncertainties, and nonholonomic constraints. Namely, the slave trajectory planner is designed to cope with the nonholonomic constraints caused by underactuated characteristics of slave agents, while the slave obstacle avoidance planner is designed to cope with obstacles in the environment, which can avoid the obstacles by artificial potential function (APF)-based obstacle avoidance algorithm. Particularly, considering that the APF usually encounters the local-minima problem, a leader selection algorithm is designed for the slave obstacle avoidance planner and a virtual force feedback is designed for the master subsystem, where the slave agents can get rid of local-minima points while teleoperated by human operator with confident force feedback. The global stability of the overall system can be guaranteed under the proposed radial basis function neural network (RBFNN)-based adaptive sliding mode master controller and slave formation controller under delays, nonlinearities and various uncertainties. The comparative experiment is implemented, and the results show the effectiveness of proposed control framework in the achievement of good performance including position tracking, force feedback, and formation and obstacles avoidance while the stability is guaranteed.

Capture Based Trust Dependence framework for authorized node identification in mobile agent systems

A mobile agent is a self-learning machine entity that uses the system infrastructure to keep running in another remote zone, check and compile the results, interact with various locations and return to his home site after completing the relegated activities. Mobile Agent-based solutions for the testing community have grown in popularity and are now used in a variety of fields, including boardroom management, electronic commerce, renewable energy and power management. Addition to these applications, Broadband Interactive Sensors, network performance improvement, disseminated knowledge mining, multimedia, human monitoring, surveillance, affective computing, weather and environment, e-learning and semantic web administrations are only a few of the topics covered. In an extremely non trusty environment, focus should be taken to shield the portable operator from acquiring altered. Existing works on mobile agent frameworks with very surprising instruments does not offer complete security. In this paper a capture based trust dependence framework is proposed for identification of authorized or trust nodes inside mobile agents systems. Here we consider the mobile adhoc networks for computational analysis of network performance using network simulator. The framework provides efficient results in identification of authorized nodes.

A cyclic pursuit framework for networked mobile agents based on vector field approach

This paper proposes a pursuit formation control scheme for a network of double-integrator mobile agents based on a vector field approach. In a leaderless architecture, each agent pursues another one via a cyclic topology to achieve a regular polygon formation. On the other hand, the agents are exposed to a rotational vector field such that they rotate around the vector field centroid, while they keep the regular polygon formation. The main problem of existing approaches in the literature for cyclic pursuit of double-integrator multiagent systems is that under those approaches, the swarm angular velocity and centroid are not controllable based on missions and agents capabilities. However, by employing the proposed vector field approach in this paper, while keeping a regular polygon formation, the swarm angular velocity and centroid can be determined arbitrary. The obtained results can be extended to achieve elliptical formations with cyclic pursuit as well. Simulation results for a team of eight mobile agents verify the accuracy of the proposed control scheme.

Localized Mobile Agent Framework for Data Processing on Internet of Things

Localized Mobile Agent Framework for Data Processing on Internet of Things

A WS -Agreement Based Resource Negotiation Framework for Mobile Agents

Mobile agents require access to computing resources on heterogeneous systems across the Internet. They need to be able to negotiate their requirements with the systems on which they wish to be hosted. This paper presents a negotiation infrastructure with which agents acquire time-limited resource contracts through negotiation with one or more mediators instead of individual hosting systems. Mediators represent groups of autonomous hosts. The negotiation protocol and language are based on the WS-Agreement Specification, and have been implemented and tested within the AgentScape framework.

Active Rule Manager for the Mobile Agent Middleware System

The active rule system is a key element of the rule-based mobile agent middleware system for activeness and autonomy of the sensor network. The rule manager, which is the main components of active rule based mobile agent framework and active rule system, performs the control and management of the rule-related processes. In this paper, we design and implement the roles and functions of the rule manager in detail. The proposed rule manager plays an important role in the sensor network environment. The sensor data server loads the active rule on the mobile agent by the rule manager according to the situations, and the mobile agent migrates to the destination node and performs the designated action. This active rule-based mobile agent middleware system presents the usefulness for the various sensor network applications. Through the rule execution experiment using the rule-based mobile agent, we show the adaptability and applicability of rule-based mobile agent middleware system to the dynamic environmental changes in sensor networks.

A Study of Distributed Network ManagementArchitectures

Initially network was managed by centralized client server technology using various protocols like SNMP, CMIP etc. But on large scale, it has many disadvantages like problem of traffic, failure of server etc as centralized network is not scalable and flexible enough. So we need a better framework to improve the management services of a network in a more precise way. This leads to the management of network in distributed way. There are already various architectures designed for distributed network management. Some of them are Client Server mobile agent framework, MAGENTA, NetPatrol etc. This paper discusses the various architectures of distributed network system and understands the working of each model. Also discuss the advantages and disadvantages of one model over other.

A Simulated Multiagent-Based Architecture for Intrusion Detection System

In this work, a Multiagent-based architecture for Intrusion Detection System (MIDS) is proposed to overcome the shortcoming of current Mobile Agent-based Intrusion Detection System. MIDS is divided into three major phases namely: Data gathering, Detection and the Response phases. The data gathering stage involves data collection based on the features in the distributed system and profiling. The data collection components are distributed on both host and network. Closed Pattern Mining (CPM) algorithm is introduced for profiling users’ activities in network database. The CPM algorithm is built on the concept of Frequent Pattern-growth algorithm by mining a prefix-tree called CPM-tree, which contains only the closed itemsets and its associated support count. According to the administrator’s specified thresholds, CPM-tree maintains only closed patterns online and incrementally outputs the current closed frequent pattern of users’ activities in real time. MIDS makes use of mobile and static agents to carry out the functions of intrusion detection. Each of these agents is built with rule-based reasoning to autonomously detect intrusions. Java 1.1.8 is chosen as the implementation language and IBM’s Java based mobile agent framework, Aglet 1.0.3 as the platform for running the mobile and static agents. In order to test the robustness of the system, a real-time simulation is carried out on University of Agriculture, Abeokuta (UNAAB) network dataset and the results showed an accuracy of 99.94%, False Positive Rate (FPR) of 0.13% and False Negative Rate (FNR) of 0.04%. This shows an improved performance of MIDS when compared with other known MA-IDSs.

모바일 에이전트 시스템의 구성적 임베딩을 위한 컴포넌트 기반의 프레임워크

Rapid evolution of wired and wireless technologies results in various types of embedded systems, and the software to be embedded into those devices now needs the flexibility rather than the fixedness which was well-known property for the embedded software in the past. Mobile agent is one of the useful distributed technologies of reducing network load and latency because of its disconnected operations and high asynchrony. In this paper, a component-based mobile agent framework, called EmHUMAN, is designed and implemented for structural embedding into the devices showing different functions and resource constraints. It consists of 3 layers of components. Based on those components, a structural embedding, considering resource constraints of required functions, amount of storage space, computing power, network bandwidth, etc can be performed. The components in each layer can be extended with addition of new components, removing some components and modifying components. EmHUMAN plays the role of a framework for developing mobile agent based distributed systems. It is also a mobile agent system by itself. EmHUMAN provides several utilities as built-in API`s, and thus high effectiveness in programming mobile agents can be achieved.

The MP architecture: towards a secure framework for mobile agents

Currently, distributed applications are mainly based on the client-server model and its variants. The growing use of the internet and the development of mobile communication technologies yield more needs in terms of performance, reliability and security. By its synchronous nature, the client-server model no longer seems to be able to meet these new demands. The mobile agents| paradigm is one of the approaches that have been proposed, and this technology holds great promises with regard to questions related to reliability and security. In this paper, we present the market-place architecture, a secure mobile agents-based framework. The main idea is to generalise the market mechanisms to non-market systems through an extended mobile agents| model, the seller-buyer model. This architecture provides developers with the opportunity to build efficient and safe mobile agents-based distributed applications. We give the outline for designing applications according to the MP architecture and propose a Jade implementation.

Simulating malware with MAlSim

This paper describes MAlSim—Mobile Agent Malware Simulator—a mobile agent framework developed to address one of the most important problems related to the simulation of attacks against information systems, i.e. the lack of adequate tools for reproducing behaviour of malicious software (malware). The framework can be deployed over the network of an arbitrary information system and it aims at simulating behaviour of each instance of malware independently. MAlSim Toolkit provides multiple classes of agents and diverse behavioural and migration/replication patterns (which, taken together, form malware templates), to be used for implementation of various types of malware (viruses, worms, malicious mobile code). The primary application of MAlSim is to support security assessments of information systems based on simulation of attacks against these systems. In this context, the framework was successfully applied to the studies on security of the information system of a power plant. The case study proved the operability, applicability and usefulness of the simulation framework and it led to very interesting conclusions on the security of the evaluated system.

Secure mobile agent execution in virtual environment

Creating a secure framework for mobile agents that leverage such an efficient tool's usage is yet to be found [Farmer WM, Guttman JD, Swarup V (1996) Proceedings of the 19th national information systems security conference, Tardo J, Valente L (1996) Mobile agent security and telescript, IEEE CompCon]. There are some available approaches to prevent agent-to-agent and agent-to-host type attacks; however, host-to-agent type attacks prevention is still at large [Jansen W, Karygiannis T NIST special publication 800-19--Mobile agent security, National Institute of Standards and Technology]. In this paper, we have implemented a framework in which both agents and hosts are protected. The three virtualization techniques (vserver, vmware, and xen) are utilized as host environments to create a secure, scalable, and efficient framework. Three agent platforms (ajanta, aglets, and sage) are installed on these virtual environments and tested for attacks. Along with a trusted server, our framework claims to be a solution to prevent host-to-agent type attacks during execution as well as most of the other types of attacks. As a result, we believe that the convergence of two promising technologies (virtualization and mobile agents) can create cost-effective, robust, reliable, and easy-to-manage frameworks.

Efficient migration for mobile computing in distributed networks

The speed and convenience of the Internet makes it advantageous to online applications. Basing on the elliptic curve cryptosystem, this study proposes a hierarchical mobile agent framework for handling key management and access control problems between mobile agent and host. It raises the security of key management, and also controls access to distributed environment in non-specific network. The proposed method successfully secures the accessing relationship between the mobile agent and the host while economizing the exhaust of storage space. Such an achievement lets the mobile agent operate efficiently, and puts in order a secure execution environment for mobile computing.

AN AUTONOMOUS DECENTRALIZED MULTI-SERVER FRAMEWORK FOR LARGE SCALE COLLABORATIVE VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENTS

Collaborative Virtual Environment (CVE) is a promising technology which provides an online shared virtual world to the geographically dispersed people to interact with each other. However, the scalability of existing CVE system is limited due to the constraints in processing power and network speed of each participating host. Large scale CVE (LCVE) that supports a large number of concurrent participants and a large amount of evolving virtual entities is not easy to achieve. In this paper, an autonomous decentralized grid based mobile agent framework for large scale CVE — MACVE is proposed. In MACVE, LCVE software system is decomposed into a group of collaborative mobile agents, each of which is responsible for an independent system task. Agents can migrate or clone dynamically at any suitable participating host (grid node) include traditional servers and qualified user hosts to avoid bottleneck, which can improve the scalability of LCVE. Therefore, MACVE is a logically multi-server architecture while the server workload is autonomously decentralized. Our system prototype and evaluation has demonstrated the feasibility of the proposed framework.

A hierarchical mobile agent framework and its application to multimedia contents

AbstractA hierarchical mobile agent is a model that extends the standard mobile agent. In this model it is possible for an agent to migrate inside another agent and parent–child relations can be constructed (the host agent being the parent). By means of such agent synthesis, it is possible to integrate different functionality and have agents interact with one another with no need for remote communications. Even when an agent migrates, it is possible to maintain the relations between parent and child stably over a long period of time. In this paper we focus on the task of controlling these parent–child relations and propose the MAFEH framework designed to simplify related tasks. This framework has two special characteristics. One consists of the parent–child agreement specification that expresses the agreement regarding the behavior between parent and child. The other consists of the interaction behavior description specification that facilitates the description of the processes by which individual interactive partners can be searched for, enter into combinations, and disassociate themselves from each other. In this paper we also present an application of the MAFEH framework demonstrating how an agent that encapsulates mobile contents can combine with other agents that provide different contents and services. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Syst Comp Jpn, 38(1): 1–17, 2007; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/scj.20624

Building and Selecting Mobile Agents for Network Management

This paper presents a framework for reusable mobile agents for network management in the sense that they are independent of either particular networks or applications. The framework enables a mobile agent to be composed from two layered components, which are mobile agents. The former is a carrier of the latter over particular networks independent of any management tasks and the latter defines management tasks performed at each host independently of any networks. The framework also offers a mechanism for matchmaking the two components. Since the mechanism is formulated on a process algebra approach, it can accurately select the appropriate itinerary component to perform management tasks at hosts that the tasks want to visit over networks. The framework provides a methodology for easily developing and operating mobile agents for traveling among multiple sub-networks to perform their management tasks at all of the nodes that they visit. This paper also describes the framework, its prototype implementation, and a practical application.

A heuristic algorithm for designing near-optimal mobile agent itineraries

Several distributed architectures, incorporating mobile agent technology, have been recently proposed to answer the scalability limitations of their centralized counterparts. However, these architectures fail to address scalability problems, when distributed tasks requiring the employment of itinerant agents is considered. This is because they lack mechanisms that guarantee optimization of agents' itineraries so as to minimize the total migration cost in terms of the round-trip latency and the incurred traffic. This is of particular importance when MAs itineraries span multiple subnets. The work presented herein aspires to address these issues. To that end, we have designed and implemented an algorithm that adapts methods usually applied for addressing network design problems in the specific area of mobile agent itinerary planning. The algorithm not only suggests the optimal number of mobile agents that minimize the overall cost but also constructs optimal itineraries for each of them. The algorithm implementation has been integrated into our mobile agent framework research prototype and tested in real network environments, demonstrating significant cost savings.

Logic-Based Mobile Agent Framework with a Concept of “Field”

Logic-Based Mobile Agent Framework with a Concept of “Field”

Logic-Based Mobile Agent Framework with a Concept of “Field”

Logic-Based Mobile Agent Framework with a Concept of “Field”

MAWS: A platform-independent framework for mobile agents using Web services

This paper proposes a framework for a multiplatform mobile agent system based on Web services. The framework includes a mobile agent factory, the mobile agents, and the host Web services. The mobile agents are created at the factory, migrate between Web services-enabled hosts, and execute at the destination hosts through invocation by XML-RPC. The transfer of mobile agents is accomplished through the employment of SOAP attachments where service handlers are used at the source and destination hosts to attach and detach agent files, respectively. The framework was implemented using the Java Web Service Developer Pack (JWSDP) and tested on 20 Linux and Windows hosts within a Wide Area Network (WAN). The system worked seamlessly on all designated hosts (proving interoperability) while comparing well in terms of throughput to three well-known mobile agent systems, namely, Voyager, Aglets, and Concordia. This paper demonstrates how the proposed system can interoperate with existing systems and serve as a model for interoperability among them. The paper also illustrates how the mobile agent can be secured against confidentiality and integrity attacks during transport and suggests ways for protecting it from malicious hosts as well as guarding hosts from malicious agents.