Design And Implementation Of Perceptual-Control-Based Agent Architecture

With the development of pervasive computing, software users have already expanded from the specialists to general public. The function of software has extended from office automation to daily self-services, such as online shopping, online registration, etc. However, a lot of software still follows the traditional development method. The typically character is the underlying business processes direct mapping to the user interface. Although such user interface could meet the need of "look and feel" correctness (the traditional usability), the user who does not have the relevant domain knowledge is difficult to understand and operate.Nowadays, users hope that the interface can reflect their intention directly. Therefore, the interface can help users to convert their intention into operation easily, and allow users share control with the system in particular cases. The new type of usability requirement is called pervasive usability in this paper. The pervasive usability here is an extension of the traditional one from higher level rather than denying it simply. The user interface based on pervasive usability is closer to the user's task model, and can reduce their cognitive burden when operating the system.In order to develop a system which can support the pervasive usability, this paper presents the design and implementation of perceptual-control-based agent architecture model. The model adds a perceptual control agent layer between user interface layer and function core. The perceptual control agent is based on the perceptual control theory. It has an ability to convert the user task model to domain model and perceptual the outside environment when processing the interference. In addition, the model using the user task date bus and application domain date bus to reduce the coupling between the user interface and function core. According to the design, we have developed a user task oriented graphic toolkit and perceptual control agent toolkit to help developers implement the user interface and perceptual control agent layer, and implemented a data pool with notification mechanism for the reference of data bus implementation as well. In order to verify the effectiveness and practicality of the theory and implementation issues discussed above, a simulation air tickets system-flight steward is developed.