Resource Discovery in Trilogy

Trilogy is a collaborative project whose key aim is the development of an integrated virtual laboratory to support research training within each institution and collaborative projects between the partners. In this paper, the architecture and underpinning platform of the system is described with particular emphasis being placed on the structure and the integration of the distributed database. A key element is the ontology that provides the multi-agent system with a conceptualisation specification of the domain; this ontology is explained, accompanied by a discussion how such a system is integrated and used within the virtual laboratory. Although in this paper, Telecommunications and in particular Broadband networks are used as exemplars, the underlying system principles are applicable to any domain where a combination of experimental and literature-based resources are required.