Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
the practical point of view and define the properties of an agent intuitively. It seems
possible to accept the following set of features of an agent which can be a starting
point for further considerations:
•
The agent comes into existence as a result of being created (e.g., through the
operation
create
) by another autonomous agent acting in a given system. However,
at the moment of running the system a certain number of appropriate agents may
be introduced into the system and run.
•
The agent may be eliminated (finish its activity) on its own initiative, or on the
initiative of another active agent (e.g. as a result of the operation
kill
). There is
a possible option according to which the influence of another agent's action is
limited in a given definite range.
•
The agent may gain information from the outside or, more precisely, from its
surrounding environment, performing the act of appropriate observation due to
his capability to observe, i.e., the operation of observation. The existence and
behaviour of other agents have an influence on the image (model) of the environ-
ment observed by a given agent.
•
The state of the environment has an influence on the behaviour of the agent or its
action in the environment (inter alia, on the decision about relocation of a given
agent, self-elimination, generation of another agent etc.).
•
The new agent may be similar to the one that created it (i.e. it may be of the same
type and even its identical copy) or it may differ from within certain limits (which
is defined with the use of the type of an agent).
•
The agent possesses memory and in decision making it may take into account
memorized events as well as observed states of the environment (capability of
learning).
•
The agent may not only collect information from the environment but also change
its state.
The flow of information in the multi-agent system may be divided into two groups:
The flow of the information agent-agent. The flow of information between agents
takes place via their mutual communication. During communication the agent
may address its messages to another chosen agent, using the addressed communi-
cation, in which a given agent identifies (and remembers at least for the duration
of communication) its interlocutor or communication with a more closely uniden-
tified group of agents. Moreover, the agent may have communication for strictly
defined purposes (the purposeful communication), in which the aim of commu-
nication within a certain aspect is memorized.
The flow of information agent-environment. Here, we may distinguish two kinds
of the information flow:
•
The flow of information from the environment to the agent realized through the
observation of the environment. This observation involves the recognition of the
state of the environment (including other agents and their behaviour).
