Agent frameworks in FCVW

Abstract

The need for frameworks in the software engineering field is being realized as the complexities and cost of software is increasing. Frameworks will provide an edge for any software industry in the 21st century. Frameworks of various kinds have been developed for many object oriented applications in the past but there have been very few attempts to develop agent frameworks in collaborative virtual environments. This paper presents the ongoing research to build agent frameworks for the federated collaborative virtual workspace (FCVW), our extension of MITRE's CVW (collaborative virtual workspace). We propose two types of agent frameworks namely the middleware and client framework. This paper focuses on client framework development and shows several types of agents that are in preparation for the development of a more general framework.