MRS

The MRS

Functionally, the Micropsi Runtime System is the core of any MicroPsi system. It provides means for communication, simulation control, configuration and logging.

Ontologically, the MRS is a set of components, plus some common code.

The MRS situates agents in an environment and provides the software infrastructure for agents and environments. Only a few assumptions about agents and the environment are made, so the the MRS should be usable in a wide variety of cases.

Key features of the MRS are:

• Flexibility. The MRS can be used for one agent within a robot or for multiple agents in a complex a-life simulation.
• Distributedness. Every component of the MRS can be on its own computer. (It doesn't have to, however.)

The MRS does not aim to be a competitor to standardized multiagent Java toolkits like JADE. We developed the MRS because we don't primarily consider distributed multi-agent systems an instrument for problem solving. Our focus is on heavy ("cognitively rich") situated agents.

The MRS' relation to the toolkit is the following: The toolkit uses the MRS. (Hence the MRS is distributed together with the toolkit). But the MRS is not dependent in any way on the toolkit.

The following FMC block diagram shows the typical architecture of a running MRS as we use it today:

Note that the 3dviewer is not a component in the strict terminology defined above.