Software Kit for Ubiquitous Agent Development (SKUAD)
Denis Payet, Rémy Courdier · HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe) · 2018
SKUAD stands for "Software Kit for Ubiquitous Agent Development." This free and multi-platform toolkit allows the creation of ambient and ubiquitous multi-agent systems. Ambient multi-agent systems enable agents to operate in our real environment, while ubiquitous systems operate in our real environment regardless of the physical substrate they run on. Thus, SKUAD can run on different devices with microprocessors, such as classic computers or Raspberry Pi. It also runs on specific versions of micro-controller chips, such as Arduino Chips or ESP8266. This toolbox was developed by the Collective Adaptive Systems Research Group in the LIM lab at the University of Reunion Island. The idea stems from the observation of the outburst of the Internet of Things and the necessity to have software that can make this mass of objects more consistent.SKUAD is composed of four software blocks:(1) HubUDP: This is the network part of the toolkit responsible for facilitating communication among the various components, even when multiple instances are executed on different devices. It is a zeroconf middleware that allows the creation of overlay networks.(2) UDA (Unified Device Architecture): UDA is a software architecture responsible for normalizing communication between devices (actuators, sensors, etc.) and software code through an introspective process. This enables the linking of agents to our real environment through different devices.(3) Ubiquity: Ubiquity operates for social interactions among agents, essential for multi-agent systems. It allows explicit and implicit communication between agents through specified slots. These slots include physical slots for physical interaction abilities and social slots for social interaction abilities. In SKUAD, agents can interact within the same "space," facilitating various forms of communication.(4) AgentU: AgentU encompasses all the formalisms that allow the creation of agents, based on the underlying components.In addition to operating in ambient mode, SKUAD can also be used in simulated mode. This extension is called SimSKUAD.