Mobile agent‐based computational steering for distributed applications

Abstract

SUMMARYThe mobile agent-based computational steering (MACS) for distributed applications is presented in this article. In the MACS, a mobile agent platform, Mobile-C, is embedded in a program through the Mobile-C library to support C/C++ mobile agent code. Runtime replaceable algorithms of a program are represented as agent services in C/C++ source code and can be replaced with new ones through mobile agents. In the MACS, a mobile agent created and deployed by a user from the steering host migrates to computing hosts successively to replace algorithms of running programs that constitute a distributed application without the need of stopping the execution and recompiling the programs. The methodology of dynamic algorithm alteration in the MACS is described in detail with an example of matrix operation. The Mobile-C library enables the integration of Mobile-C into any C/C++ programs to carry out computational steering through mobile agents. The source code level execution of mobile agent code facilitates handling issues such as portability and secure execution of mobile agent code. In the MACS, the network load between the steering and computing hosts can be reduced, and the successive operations of a mobile agent on multiple computing hosts are not affected whether the steering host stays online or not. The employment of the middle-level language C/C++ enables the MACS to accommodate the diversity of scientific and engineering fields to allow for runtime interaction and steering of distributed applications to match the dynamic requirements imposed by the user or the execution environment. An experiment is used to validate the feasibility of the MACS in real-world mobile robot applications. The experiment replaces a mobile robot's behavioral algorithm with a mobile agent at runtime.

A new paradigm of cloud-based predictive maintenance for intelligent manufacturing

“…Increasing interest in agent technology leads to numerous mobile agent systems being developed. Several notable mobile agent systems including Mole, Aglets, Concordia, D'Agents, Ara, TACOMA, JADE, and Mobile-C have been reported in the literature (Baumann et al 2002;Lange and Oshima 1998; Wong et al 1997;Bellifemine et al 2008;Gray et al 2002;Peine 2002;Johnansen et al 2002;Chou et al 2009). The first six mobile agent systems are not compliant to agent standards, whereas JADE and Mobile-C are two IEEE FIPA compliant agent systems.…”

“…The first six mobile agent systems are not compliant to agent standards, whereas JADE and Mobile-C are two IEEE FIPA compliant agent systems. Mobile-C (Chou et al 2009) has a small footprint and supports multiple platforms.…”

A bio-inspired mobile agent-based integrated system for flexible autonomic job shop scheduling

“…Mobile-C [35][36][37], an embeddable mobile agent platform supporting C/C++ mobile agents for various distributed applications, is employed in the system as the scheduling center agency (SCY) and manufacturing cell agency (MCY), as shown in Fig. 8.…”

An embeddable mobile agent platform supporting runtime code mobility, interaction and coordination of mobile agents and host systems

“…Therefore, support of dynamic algorithm alteration allows a user to change the implementation of functions while a simulation is in progress. With the Mobile-C library, each function in a simulation program can be defined in the mobile agent code and registered as a service with the DF, so that an algorithm can be altered by replacing the current service with a new one containing the modified function implementation [48]. This section gives an example that demonstrates how to dynamically change an algorithm in a running simulation through the Mobile-C library, which cannot be accomplished by some commonly-used computational steering libraries [49][50][51][52].…”