Editing Mobile agent (section)

==Definition and overview==

A ''mobile agent'' is a type of [[software agent]], with the feature of  ''autonomy'', ''social ability'', ''learning'', and most significantly, ''mobility''.

More specifically, a mobile agent is a [[Process (computing)|process]] that can transport its state from one environment to another, with its data intact, and be capable of performing appropriately in the new environment. Mobile agents decide when and where to move. Movement is often evolved from [[Remote procedure call|RPC]] methods. Just as a user directs a web browser to "visit" a website (the browser merely downloads a copy of the site, or one version of it in the case of dynamic web sites), a mobile agent accomplishes a move through data duplication. When a mobile agent decides to move, it [[Serialization|saves its own state]] ([[process image]]), transports this saved state to the new host and resumes execution from the saved state.

A mobile agent is a specific form of [[mobile code]], within the field of [[code mobility]]. However, in contrast to the [[remote evaluation]] and [[code on demand]] programming paradigms, mobile agents are active in that they can ''choose'' to migrate between computers at any time during their execution. This makes them a powerful tool for implementing [[distributed system|distributed applications]] in a [[computer network]].

There are two types of mobile agents. The classification is based on their migration path.

# Mobile agents with predefined path: these have a static migration path.
# Free roaming mobile agent:<ref>{{Cite book|date = 2010-06-01|pages = V5–261–V5–265|volume = 5|doi = 10.1109/ICETC.2010.5530034|first1 = Fan|last1 = Linna|first2 = Liu|last2 = Jun| title=2010 2nd International Conference on Education Technology and Computer | chapter=A free-roaming mobile agent security protocol against colluded truncation attack |isbn = 978-1-4244-6367-1|s2cid = 13966113}}</ref> these have a dynamic migration path. Depending on the present network condition, the mobile agent chooses its path.

An open multi-agent system (MAS) is a system in which agents, that are owned by a variety of stakeholders, continuously enter and leave the system.