Implementing QoS-adaptation in coordination artifacts by enhancing Cougaar multi-agent middleware

Coordination artifacts are first-class software entities that encapsulate an abstract communication pattern either among agents or between an agent and its environment. By separating these coordination artifacts from agent implementations, both are simplified and acquire a nearly parallel structure. Coordination artifacts provide an ideal means for dealing with systemic issues, including survivability, allowing the remaining agent code to focus solely on its domain/business logic. Coordination artifacts can be implemented as a small set of extensions to the existing Cougaar agent middleware. In this paper, we present a design for coordination artifacts and their implementation in Cougaar.