A Novel Software Agent Framework with Embedded Policy Control

In general, agent frameworks allow the functionality of their agents to be augmented with plug-ins, and agents in a multi-agent system collaborate with other agents to achieve their collective and/or individual goals. This model poses a few issues in terms of function coordination: (i) to allow the insertions of plug-ins on-the-fly, an agent framework needs to properly schedule the execution of plug-ins in a timely, coordinated fashion; (ii) plug-ins may conflict with each other in their behavior; and (iii) agents may need to adapt their behavior based on their environments, in addition to coordinating their actions according to their objectives. Recent advances in policy-based management research suggest a promising direction to remedy the deficiency of existing software agent frameworks. We envision that the coordination between the plug-ins within an agent as well as the compliance of agents with environmental requirements can be achieved via policy control. With policy control, agents can adapt their behavior dynamically to meet the ever-changing environmental requirements such as those posed by military wireless ad hoc networks. In this paper, we present a novel software agent framework with seamlessly integrated policy control. We first describe the concept of policy control and how it is integrated into this framework. Next we explain the process of policy in action, discuss in detail the functions and benefits of policy control, and elaborate on the agent behavior adaptation that enables agents to achieve their goals while meeting dynamic environmental requirements.