Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
As it is common agreement that an agent consists of a body and a
behavior (cp. [114, 69]), this distinction is adopted for the GRAMS
reference model:
is defined as tuple
A
=
(
ATT
,
SEN
,
EFF
)with
ATT
representing a set of attributes,
SEN
denoting the agents sensors and
Definition 16 (Agent)
An
agent
A
∈
A
EFF
being the set of effectors of this
agent.
As objects can be seen as agents without behavior, the definition of
an object looks like a subset of the agent definition:
Definition 17 (Object)
An
object
O
∈
O
is defined by a set of
attributes:
O
=(
ATT
).
Due to this similarity, objects are not explicitly treated in the following
sections.
6.6.1 Attributes of agents and objects
Agents and objects are characterized by various properties (e.g.,
size, speed, temperature, mental attitudes, current beliefs). These
properties are defined as set of attributes
ATT
=(
b
1
,...,b
n
)(cp.[16,
p. 9]) where each attribute
b
i
may have values of a different domain
B
i
. The attributes are characterized as follows:
Each attribute may be either static (e.g., size) or dynamic (e.g.,
speed). This distinction is dependent on the model purpose, e.g.,
size of an agent may be static or dynamic (depending on whether
growth is modeled or not).
Each attribute may be perceivable by other agents or not. In
general this will depend on the attribute type and the sensoric
capabilities of the other agents. For example, some agents may
perceive temperatures while another kind of agent is incapable of
perceiving temperatures.
