Agent Communication and Cooperative InformationAgents

Abstract. In any multi-agent system the coordination between the agents is animportant element that determines to a large extent the effectiveness of the system. One way to facilitate the coordination between the agents are agent com-munication languages. In this paper we will present a short introduction to agent communication languages in general and will indicate the main topics of interestin agent communication research. We will relate these developments to the characteristics of cooperative information agents in particular. This leads to a numberof short term goals for the development of agent communication between cooperative information agents, which are for some part very practical and also deviatein emphasis from agent communication in general