Considerations on a new software architecture for distributed environments using autonomous semantic agents

Abstract

Distributed processing environments such as that of a traffic management network system (TMS) can be implemented easier, faster, and secure and perform better through use of autonomous semantic agents (ASAs). For an ASA can then be realized as a semantic Web Service, a whole TMS is easily implemented through a collection of semantic Web services agents arranged according to the topology of the traffic network. It would suffice to develop a generic ASA Web service class, instantiate individual ASAs from it in numbers as required one per junction, and supply specific intersection data in semantically-enriched representation to each. Should advanced information support and control services be required, one of the ASAs may be configured slightly differently in that it acts as the operational overseer and repository for aggregated data and ASA class code. Once created, this Facilitator ASA knows the topology of the whole traffic network, identifies each intersection (and its associated ASA), can interrogate and instruct individual ASAs. Aspects of ASA design, operation, and application development using ASAs are taken into consideration. Simulations show high performance and the benefits of load distribution using ASAs.