CSMACL Agent Communication Languages --- 2003/2004

Course Abstract

The course provides and introduction to the theory and application of agent communication languages. It covers material from theories of multi-agent systems to programming architectures for agent systems based on communication, such as JADE and FIPA.

Lecture Schedule

    Thursday - 15.00 - 17.00 - 1B01.

Course structure

As discussed during the lectures, the course will cover material from the following topics:

1. Introduction to Multi-Agent Systems.
2. Introduction to Theories of Multi-Agent systems.
3. Models of Communication: Searle, Cohen and Levesque, Jones.
4. Agent Communication Languages in practice: KQML, FIPA.
5. Toolkits for building FIPA compliant MAS: the case of JADE.

Notes and further reading for the topics above

For each of the parts above (roughly two lectures each) lecture slides will be made available on this site.
A very good introduction to the topics of multi agent systems is: M Wooldridge "Introduction to multiagent systems", Wiley. The slides used during the lectures that refer to the book by Wooldridge can be downloaded from here.

In more detail, the material for the parts above is as follows:

1.  M Wooldridge - Introduction to MAS. Chapters 1, and 2. Slides available from here. Further reading: Weiss, Multi-Agent Systems, MIT Press 1999.
   
2. A Lomuscio - Lecture notes will be made available.
3. AJI Jones - Lecture notes will be made available.
4. KQML Specification document, FIPA specification documents will be distributed.
   
5. JADE Specification documents will be distributed.
   

Specifically, lecture slides for the material above, as well as a lecture plan can be found below:

Lecture 1. Introduction to MAS. Chapter 1 of Wooldridge.
Lecture 2. Agents as intentional systems. Chapter 2 of Wooldridge.
Lecture 3. Basics of Modal Logic and Kripke Semantics. My own lecture slides (1 slide pp, 2 slides pp, 4 slides pp).
Lecture 4. Interpreted Systems. My own lectures slides (1 slide pp, 2 slides pp, 4 slides pp).
Lecture 5. An example of a verifiable communication protocol in temporal epistemic logic: The Bit Transmission      Problem. Material already in Lecture 4. Further reading (only if interested in the subject) in this research paper.
Lecture 6. Intention in MAS, and the basics of Cohen and Levesque approach to semantics of Speech Acts. Chapters 4, 12, and 8 of Wooldridge, reflecting what presented during lectures (Ch4: slides 1-6, Ch12:  slides 28-39; Ch8:  slides 2-7; Ch12: slides 40-47).
Lecture 7. AJI Jones. Topics in Communication. Handouts were provided during the lectures.
Lecture 8. AJI Jones. Topics in Communication. Handouts were provided during the lectures.
Lecture 9. KQML and FIPA. M Wooldridge Chapter 8 Section 2 only. KQML Specification document, FIPA specification document.
Lecture 10. JADE. F Raimondi. Lecture notes for the lab class available from here.
Lecture 11. Exercise Lab class on JADE. Notes available here.
Lecture 12. Revision lecture. Questions and Answer session.

Past exam papers:

The 2002 exam paper is available. As discussed during the lectures, please do note that some topics were covered differently; this is reflected in the exam paper.