ZEUS: A toolkit for building distributed multiagent systems

The multiagent systems approach of knowledge-level cooperation between auto nomous agents promises significant benefits to distributed systems engineer ing, such as enhanced interoperability, scalability, and reconfigurability. However, thus far, because of the innate difficulty of constructing multia gent systems, this promise has been largely unrealized. Hence there is an e merging desire among agent developers to move away from developing point so lutions to point problems in favor of developing methodologies and toolkits for building distributed multiagent systems. This philosophy led to the de velopment of the ZEUS Agent Building Toolkit, which facilitates the rapid d evelopment of collaborative agent applications through the provision of a l ibrary of agent-level components and an environment to support the agent-bu ilding process. The ZEUS toolkit is a synthesis of established agent techno logies with some novel solutions to provide an integrated collaborative age nt-building environment.