Aimpulse Spectrum

Aimpulse Spectrum is a Java-based runtime environment for multiagent systems. It is designed to execute a large number of agents in parallel. In addition, Spectrum eases agent development by means of agent behavior and interaction templates.

Aimpulse Spectrum supports agent communication following the messaging standards of the IEEE Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents (FIPA). In contrast to other FIPA-compatible systems, Aimpulse Spectrum is not considered as a dedicated FIPA agent platform. Instead it is designed as a more general environment for executing and evaluating parallel interacting processes. As a consequence, Aimpulse Spectrum does not support FIPA specialities such as distributed agent systems or agent mobility.

Aimpulse Spectrum plays to its strengths when it handles thousands or even a million agents at a time. Furthermore, it allows executing agents with the same implementation in very different execution modes. Besides the usual operation mode using real-time and real-world, the platform features simulation capabilities. To this end, Aimpulse Spectrum also considers simulation quality criteria that are usually not covered by general agent development frameworks. These criteria include time model adequacy, causality, and reproducibility.