Mobile agent applications in a distributive interactive virtual environment: the Happy Paradise (HAPA)
Grace SauLan Loo, D.H.S. Ly, B.C.P. Tang · 2002
The Happy Paradise (HAPA) is a means for end-users to explore different worlds, to investigate different businesses in industry, at close range, in a multimedia setting or to learn about kindness and naturalness of our society. It is meant for teens, adults and professionals to investigate the world(s) of their interest. It is constructed using Distributed Interactive Virtual Environment (DIVE, available on the Web), multimedia visual software that supports distributed multi-users on heterogeneous platforms. The research project IMAIS explores the design of mobile agents that travel through the various worlds, using the evolutionary development paradigm in software engineering. This paper shares with new developers the basic approach and knowledge useful for creating a new virtual world, minimising wastage of time and reducing the steep learning curve. HAPA adopts Beliefs, Desires, Intentions (BDI), Goals and Plans modelling to build enhanced deliberative agents. Fuzzy queries from the explorers during their travels are supported. HAPA proposes a simple software engineering approach for new developers to create easily a virtual world for tourism using mobile agents. The tour agent and security agent creations are used in the presentation of the methodology.