Enhancing JADE Interoperability through the Java-based Interoperable Mobile Agent Framework

JADE is one of the most diffuse FIPA compliant agent platforms for the development of industrial applications. However, it is not interoperable with the majority of currently available agent and mobile agent platforms employed for the development of agent-based applications in several industrial sectors ranging from manufacturing to telecommunications. This paper describes an extension of the Java-based Interoperable Mobile Agent Framework (JIMAF) for JADE. The JIMAF, which is based on the software layering concept and on the voluntary interoperability approach, allows for high-level interoperability of execution, communication and migration among heterogeneous Java-based mobile agent platforms. The proposed extension of the JIMAF makes it possible to define JIMAF-based agents which can then be effectively exploited for developing inter-organization agent-based applications supported by Java-based non-FIPA-compliant agent platforms and JADE.