Intelligent map agents — An ubiquitous personalized GIS

The Intelligent Map Agents (IMA) is an agent-based framework aimed at providing access to, and support for the manipulation of, spatial information. The IMA is designed as an open architecture that can accommodate a large number of mobile users and services possibly distributed across a wide geographical area. Today's users are mobile and are equipped with small powerful devices. Using wireless communication, these devices are/will be capable of exchanging digital data and voice from almost any location. In this paper, we present the IMA architecture which is aimed at replacing the monolithic approach to geographic information systems with a new dynamic, lean, and customizable system supporting spatially-oriented applications. We present this vision, describe the design of the IMA and discuss a sample application.