FIPA
Encyclopedia
The Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents (FIPA) is a body for developing and setting computer software
standards for heterogeneous and interacting agents
and agent-based systems.
FIPA was founded as a Swiss not-for-profit organization in 1996 with the ambitious goal of defining a full set of standards for both implementing systems within which agents could execute (agent platforms) and specifying how agents themselves should communicate and interact.
Within its lifetime the organization's membership included several academic institutions and a large number of companies including Hewlett Packard, IBM
, BT (formerly British Telecom), Sun Microsystems
, Fujitsu
and many more. A number of standards were proposed, however, despite several agent platforms adopting the "FIPA standard" for agent communication it never succeeded in gaining the commercial support which was originally envisaged. The Swiss organization was dissolved in 2005 and an IEEE standards committee was set up in its place.
The most widely adopted of the FIPA standards are the Agent Management and Agent Communication Language (FIPA-ACL) specifications.
The name FIPA is somewhat of a misnomer
as the "agents
" with which the body is concerned exist solely in software (and hence have no physical aspect).
Computer software
Computer software, or just software, is a collection of computer programs and related data that provide the instructions for telling a computer what to do and how to do it....
standards for heterogeneous and interacting agents
Software agent
In computer science, a software agent is a piece of software that acts for a user or other program in a relationship of agency, which derives from the Latin agere : an agreement to act on one's behalf...
and agent-based systems.
FIPA was founded as a Swiss not-for-profit organization in 1996 with the ambitious goal of defining a full set of standards for both implementing systems within which agents could execute (agent platforms) and specifying how agents themselves should communicate and interact.
Within its lifetime the organization's membership included several academic institutions and a large number of companies including Hewlett Packard, IBM
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
, BT (formerly British Telecom), Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold :computers, computer components, :computer software, and :information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982...
, Fujitsu
Fujitsu
is a Japanese multinational information technology equipment and services company headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. It is the world's third-largest IT services provider measured by revenues....
and many more. A number of standards were proposed, however, despite several agent platforms adopting the "FIPA standard" for agent communication it never succeeded in gaining the commercial support which was originally envisaged. The Swiss organization was dissolved in 2005 and an IEEE standards committee was set up in its place.
The most widely adopted of the FIPA standards are the Agent Management and Agent Communication Language (FIPA-ACL) specifications.
The name FIPA is somewhat of a misnomer
Misnomer
A misnomer is a term which suggests an interpretation that is known to be untrue. Such incorrect terms sometimes derive their names because of the form, action, or origin of the subject becoming named popularly or widely referenced—long before their true natures were known.- Sources of misnomers...
as the "agents
Software agent
In computer science, a software agent is a piece of software that acts for a user or other program in a relationship of agency, which derives from the Latin agere : an agreement to act on one's behalf...
" with which the body is concerned exist solely in software (and hence have no physical aspect).
Systems using FIPA standards
- JadeJava Agent Development FrameworkJava Agent DEvelopment Framework, or JADE, is a software framework for multi-agent systems, in Java that has been in development since at least 2001...
- Java Intelligent Agent Compontentware (JIAC)
- The SPADE Multiagent and Organizations PlatformSPADESPADE is a free software multi-agent system platform developed in the Python programming language and based in the instant messaging XMPP technology...
(Python) - JACK Intelligent AgentsJACK Intelligent AgentsJACK Intelligent Agents or JACK is a framework in Java for multi-agent system development. JACK Intelligent Agents was built by Agent Oriented Software Pty. Ltd. and is a third generation agent platform building on the experiences of the Procedural Reasoning System and Distributed Multi-Agent...
(Java) - The April Agent Platform (AAP) and Language (April) (No longer actively developed)
- Zeus Agent Building Toolkit
- The Fipa-OS agent platform (No longer actively developed)