Abstract

A mobile-agent system is one where user programs (agents) may voluntarily migrate from one computer (host) to another. As agents move through the network, they consume resources at each host that they visit. The value of a mobile-agent system is dependent on agents' ability to migrate from one host to another on the network. Hosts providing access to visiting agents expose themselves to additional load and risk. To oset risks and costs of access, we propose establishing a market system where mobile agents buy computational resources. This mechanism acts to control mobile agents' resource consumption due to the nite currency supply available to any agent. Additionally, agents may sell their own services to users, hosts, and other agents. We propose to investigate how mobile agents can plan and act in market-based environments. We propose research for several methods of market-based resource allocation and mobile-agent planning algorithms to interact with the proposed all...

Citations