A mobile agent is a software program which can suspend its execution and resume it on another computer. Agents are a recent development which have become a popular and useful methodology for the modelling and implementation of distributed systems. The use of multi-agent systems in various areas suggests they may be appropriate for the design of power system automation systems. This is the first book to introduce the use of the Internet protocol suite and multi-agent systems for the information management, online monitoring and control of distributed power system substations. An open architecture is proposed: mobile agents are applied to the retrieval and analysis of substation data and to remote operator intervention; a prototype implementation of the architecture in the form of a substation information management system is described; and the architecture is evaluated theoretically. This is an excellent reference for postgraduates, researchers and academics as well as engineers and managers.