Client software agents in FCVW

Software agents are a rapidly developing field of computer science. The need for software agents is felt in various applications and environments. It has therefore become essential to study agents with respect to the various environments in which they operate. MITR's CVW (collaborative virtual workspace) is a collaborative virtual environment where agents can be created and perform important tasks for the user. CVW is very suitable for programming agents especially as they interact with objects, users, and virtual locations. This paper focuses on three types of agents programmed in FCVW (federated CVW), our extension of CVW. These agents include observer, retriever, and garbage-collector agents. The observer's functions are to observe the behaviour of users, objects, and files. The retriever agent helps a user to find other users, objects and rooms within FCVW. The garbage-collector agent monitors files to inform the user about files on the basis of predefined dates.