A general framework for parallel BDI agents in dynamic environments

Abstract

In this paper, a general framework for the parallel BDI model suitable for dynamic environments is proposed. It is a parallel agent architecture that supports the following agent abilities at architecture level: (1) the ability to monitor the environment at all times and respond to emergencies timely; (2) the ability to reconsider and re-schedule goals, intentions and actions in reaction to unexpected or new information; (3) the ability to perform multiple actions at once; (4) the ability to perceive, deliberate and act simultaneously; (5) the ability to prioritize the deliberations and intention executions. We define the functions and the operations of the processing units in the agent and how these units interact, cooperate and synchronize with each other. With the advances in semiconductor technology which allow multiple processing units to be implemented on the same silicon chip, a parallel BDI agent will be an effective way to enable it to perform in a dynamically changing environment when the arrival rate of events is high. We illustrate the working of a parallel agent under the general framework with an agent simulating the behaviour of a vessel captain navigating in sea. Then the performance of a parallel agent is evaluated against several versions of sequential agents. The issue of how much parallelism and how to configure a parallel agent based on the general framework are studied by experiments with different configurations of the parallel agent.