A3ME - An Agent-Based Middleware Approach for Mixed Mode Environments

In this paper we introduce a new agent-based approach for middleware in mixed mode environments. Mixed mode environments have different dimensions of heterogeneity: devices with widely differing capabilities, different software, and different communication technologies. To deal with these, each node in the network is seen as an independent entity: a device agent. These device agents are abstractions of the network nodes and they offer services corresponding to nodes´ capabilities and also use services offered by other agents. Interoperability is achieved through an agent interaction interface. For the description of device types, capabilities and services a predefined but extensible ontology is used. This approach combines and adopts results from the areas of multi-agent systems and heterogeneous ad hoc networks.