JADE - A FIPA-compliant agent framework

TLDR

JADE is a FIPA‑compliant software framework that provides an agent middleware platform, handling message transport, encoding, parsing, and life‑cycle management to enable interoperable multi‑agent applications. The paper aims to simplify agent development while ensuring FIPA compliance by presenting JADE’s services, agents, and internal architecture. The authors describe JADE’s architecture, outlining key design decisions and addressing main architectural issues.

Abstract

JADE is a software framework to develop agent applications in compliance with the FIPA specifications for interoperable intelligent multi-agent systems. The goal is to simplify development while ensuring standard compliance through a comprehensive set of system services and agents. JADE can then be considered an agent middle-ware that implements an Agent Platform and a development framework. It deals with all those aspects that are not peculiar of the agent internals and that are independent of the applications, such as message transport, encoding and parsing, or agent life-cycle. This paper presents the JADE software describing its intended uses, as well as being a walkthrough of JADE internal architecture. The main architectural issues are discussed, and the major design decisions are outlined.