JACK: A System for Building Holonic Coalitions

Coalitions between military and non-government organisations to manage operations other than war (OOTW), e.g. earthquake evacuations or food distribution to refugees require sophisticated knowledge management, decentralised control, and the ability to conduct flexible negotiations. Holonic systems are a research topic well suited to these requirements as they treat each organisation as an autonomous cooperative entity that simultaneously adopts a part-whole relationship within the coalition. This paper discusses a model of coalitions based on the application of holonic principles. The paper also outlines how this model could be implemented using JACK, the flagship software development product from Agent Oriented Systems.