The Zeus Technical Manual

Jaron Collis

Divine Ndumu

Christopher van Buskirk

Release 1.04, July 2000


Index

1 Introduction
1.1Issues For Builders Of Collaborating Agent Systems
2The Zeus Design Philosophy
3The Zeus Toolkit Architecture
3.1The Agent Component Library
The Generic ZEUS agent
3.2The ZEUS Agent Building Software
3.3The ZEUS Utility Agents
4Agent Communication
4.1The Mailbox
4.2 The Language of Communication
4.3The Message Handler
5Agent Co-ordination
5.1The Default Problem Solving Behaviour
5.2A Graph Walkthrough
5.3The Default Rationality Model
6Planning and Task Execution
6.1Multi-agent Planning with Primitive Operators
6.2Multi-agent Planning with Summary Operators
6.3Execution Monitoring
7Integrating ZEUS Agents with External Programs
Concluding Remarks


Contents Introduction Zeus Philosophy Zeus Architecture Communication Coordination Planning and
Task Execution		 External
Applications