Skip to main content

Control architectures for autonomous and interacting agents: A survey

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 1209))

Abstract

The control architecture of an autonomous agent describes its modules and capabilities, and how they work together. Over the past few years, numerous architectures have been proposed in the literature, addressing different key features an agent should have.

In this paper, we survey the state of the art in research on agent architectures. We start by presenting selected examples of three prominent research threads, i.e.: architectures for reactive agents, deliberative agents, and interacting agents. Then we describe various hybrid approaches that reconcile these three threads, aiming at a combination of different features like reactivity, deliberation, and the ability to interact with other agents. These approaches are contrasted with architectural issues of recent agent-based work, including software agents, softbots, believable agents, as well as commercial agent-based systems.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. P. E. Agre and D. Chapman. Pengi: an Implementation of a Theory of Activity. In Proc. of AAAI-87, pages 268–272. Morgan Kaufmann, 1987.

    Google Scholar 

  2. P. E. Agre and D. Chapman. What are plans for? In [Mae 90a], pages 17–34. 1990.

    Google Scholar 

  3. J. F. Allen, J. Hendler, and A. Tate. Readings in Planning. Morgan Kaufmann, San Mateo, 1990.

    Google Scholar 

  4. J. A. Ambros-Ingersson and S. Steel. Integrating planning, execution, and monitoring. In [AHT90], pages 735–740. 1990.

    Google Scholar 

  5. R. C. Arkin. Integrating behavioral, perceptual, and world knowledge in reactive navigation. In [Mae90a], pages 105–122. 1990.

    Google Scholar 

  6. T. Balch and R. C. Arkin. Motor schema-based formation control for multiagent robot teams. In Proceedings of the First International Conference on Multiagent Systems, San Francisco, CA, 1995.

    Google Scholar 

  7. A. Babloyantz. Molecules, Dynamics and Life. An Introduction to Self-Organization of Matter. John Wiley and Sons, 1986.

    Google Scholar 

  8. J. Bates. The role of emotions in believable agents. Communications of the ACM, 37(7):122–125, 1994.

    Google Scholar 

  9. M. Barbuceanu and M. S. Fox. The architecture of an agent building shell. In M. Wooldridge, J. P. Müller, and M. Tambe, editors, Intelligent Agents — Proceedings of the 1995 Workshop on Agent Theories, Architectures, and Languages (ATAL-95), volume 1037 of Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence, pages 235–250. Springer-Verlag, 1996.

    Google Scholar 

  10. A. Bond and L. Gasser. Readings in Distributed Artificial Intelligence. Morgan Kaufmann, Los Angeles, CA, 1988.

    Google Scholar 

  11. B. Burmeister, A. Haddadi, and K. Sundermeyer. Generic configurable cooperation protocols for multi-agent systems. In Pre-Proceedings of MAA-MAW9S. University of Neuchâtel, August 1993.

    Google Scholar 

  12. M. E. Bratman, D. J. Israel, and M. E. Pollack. Toward an architecture for resource-bounded agents. Technical Report CSLI-87-104, Center for the Study of Language and Information, SRI and Stanford University, August 1987.

    Google Scholar 

  13. R. P. Bonasso, D. Kortenkamp, D. P. Miller, and M. Slack. Experiences with an architecture for intelligent, reactive agents. In M. Wooldridge, J. P. Müller, and M. Tambe, editors, Intelligent Agents — Proceedings of the 1995 Workshop on Agent Theories, Architectures, and Languages (ATAL-95), volume 1037 of Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence, pages 187–202. Springer-Verlag, 1996.

    Google Scholar 

  14. J. Bates, A. B. Loyall, and W. S. Reilly. An architecture for action, emotion, and social behavior. In Proceedings of the Fourth European Workshop on Modeling Autonomous Agents in a Multi-Agent World (MAAMAW-92), S. Martino al Cimino, Italy, 1992.

    Google Scholar 

  15. H.-J. Bürckert and H. J. Müller. RATMAN: Rational Agents Testbed for Multi-Agent Networks. In Y. Demazeau and J.-P. Müller, editors, Decentralized A. I., volume 2, pages 217–230. North-Holland, 1991. Also published in the Proceedings of MAAMAW-90.

    Google Scholar 

  16. M. E. Bratman. Intentions, Plans, and Practical Reason. Harvard University Press, 1987.

    Google Scholar 

  17. Rodney A. Brooks. A robust layered control system for a mobile robot. In IEEE Journal of Robotics and Automation, volume RA-2 (1), pages 14–23, April 1986.

    Google Scholar 

  18. Rodney A. Brooks. A robot that walks: Emergent behaviors from a carefully evolved network. In Patric Henry Winston and Sarah Alexandra Shellard, editors, Artificial Intelligence at MIT, Expanding Frontiers, pages 28–39. MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusets, 1990.

    Google Scholar 

  19. R. A. Brooks. Intelligence without representation. Artificial Intelligence, 47:139–159, 1991.

    Google Scholar 

  20. B. Burmeister and K. Sundermeyer. Cooperative problem-solving guided by intentions and perception. In Y. Demazeau and E. Werner, editors, Decentralized A. I., volume 3. North-Holland, 1992.

    Google Scholar 

  21. B. Chaib-Draa. Interaction between agents in routine, familiar and unfamiliar situations, 1996. to appear in the International Journal of Intelligent and Cooperative Information Systems.

    Google Scholar 

  22. P.R. Cohen and H.J. Levesque. Intention is choice with commitment. Artificial Intelligence, 42(3), 1990.

    Google Scholar 

  23. V. G. Dabija. Deciding Whether to Plan to React. PhD thesis, Stanford University, Department of Computer Science, December 1993.

    Google Scholar 

  24. D. N. Davis. Reactive and motivational agents: towards a collective minder. In J. P. Müller, M. J. Wooldridge, and N. R. Jennings, editors, Intelligent Agents III — Proceedings of the Third International Workshop on Agent Theories, Architectures, and Languages (ATAL-96), Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence. Springer-Verlag, Heidelberg, 1997.

    Google Scholar 

  25. M. Drummond and J. Bresina. Anytime synthetic projection: Maximizing the probability of goal satisfaction. In Proceedings of the Eight National Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-90), pages 138–144. AAAI Press / MIT Press, 1990.

    Google Scholar 

  26. D. Dennett. The Intentional Stance. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1987.

    Google Scholar 

  27. T. L. Dean and M. P. Wellman. Planning and Control. Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, San Mateo CA, 1991.

    Google Scholar 

  28. E. A. Emerson and J. Srinivasan. Branching time temporal logic. In J. W. de Bakker, W.-P. de Roever, and G. Roezenberg, editors, Linear Time, Branching Time and Partial Order in Logics and Models for Concurrency, pages 123–172. Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 1989.

    Google Scholar 

  29. O. Etzioni. Moving up the information food chain: Deploying softbots on the world wide web. In Proceedings of AAAI-96 (Abstract of invited talk), 1996.

    Google Scholar 

  30. O. Etzioni and D. Weld. A softbot-based interface to the internet. Communications of the ACM, 37(5):72–76, 1994.

    Google Scholar 

  31. J. Ferber. Eco-problem solving: How to solve a problem by interactions. In Proceedings of the 9th Workshop on DAI, pages 113–128, 1989.

    Google Scholar 

  32. I. A. Ferguson. TouringMachines: An Architecture for Dynamic, Rational, Mobile Agents. PhD thesis, Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge, UK., 1992.

    Google Scholar 

  33. I. A. Ferguson. Integrated control and coordinated behaviour. In M. J. Wooldridge and N. R. Jennings, editors, Intelligent Agents — Theories, Architectures, and Languages, volume 890 of Lecture Notes in AI. Springer, January 1995.

    Google Scholar 

  34. T. Finin and R. Fritzson. KQML — a language and protocol for knowledge and information exchange. In Proceedings of the 13th Intl. Distributed Artificial Intelligence Workshop, pages 127–136, Seattle, WA, USA, 1994.

    Google Scholar 

  35. S. Franklin and A. Graesser. Is it an agent, or just a program?: A taxonomy for autonomous agents. In J. P. Müller, M. J. Wooldridge, and N. R. Jennings, editors, Intelligent Agents III — Proceedings of the Third International Workshop on Agent Theories, Architectures, and Languages (ATAL-96), Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence. ECAI-96, Budapest, 1997.

    Google Scholar 

  36. R. E. Fikes, P. E. Hart, and N. Nilsson. STRIPS: A New Approach to the Application of Theorem Proving. Artificial Intelligence, 2:189–208, 1971.

    Google Scholar 

  37. R. James Firby. Adaptive Execution in Dynamic Domains. PhD thesis, Yale University, Computer Science Department, 1989. Also published as Technical Report YALEU/CSD/RR#672.

    Google Scholar 

  38. R. James Firby. Building symbolic primitives with continuous control routines. In J. Hendler, editor, Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Artificial Intelligence Planning Systems (AIPS-92). Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, San Mateo, CA, 1992.

    Google Scholar 

  39. R. James Firby. Task networks for controlling continuous processes. In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Artificial Intelligence Planning Systems (AIPS-94), pages 49–54, 1994.

    Google Scholar 

  40. K. Fischer. Verteiltes und kooperatives Planen in einer flexiblen Fertigung-sumgebung. DISKI, Dissertationen zur Künstlichen Intelligenz. infix, 1993.

    Google Scholar 

  41. I. A. Ferguson, N. R. Jennings, J. P. Müller, M. Pischel, and M. J. Wooldridge. The MEDL agent architecture. Internal Working Paper, 1996.

    Google Scholar 

  42. K. Fischer, J. P. Müller, and M. Pischel. A pragmatic BDI architecture. In M. Wooldridge, J. P. Müller, and M. Tambe, editors, Intelligent Agents — Proceedings of the 1995 Workshop on Agent Theories, Architectures, and Languages (ATAL-95), volume 1037 of Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence, pages 203–218. Springer-Verlag, 1996.

    Google Scholar 

  43. H. R. Frost. The JAVA agent template. http://cdr.stanford.edu/ABE/JavaAgent.html, 1996.

    Google Scholar 

  44. E. Gat. Alfa: a language for programming reactive robotic control systems. In Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Robotics and Automation, 1991.

    Google Scholar 

  45. E. Gat. Reliable Goal-directed Reactive Control for Real-World Autonomous Mobile Robots. PhD thesis, Virginia Polytechnic and State University, Blacksburg, Virginia, 1991.

    Google Scholar 

  46. E. Gat. Integrating planning and reacting in a heterogeneous asynchronous architecture for controlling real-world mobile robots. In Proceedings of AAAI'92, pages 809–815, 1992.

    Google Scholar 

  47. M. Georgeff. Communication and interaction in multi-agent plans. In Proceedings of IJCAI-83, pages 125–129, Karslruhe, Germany, 1983.

    Google Scholar 

  48. L. Gasser and M.N. Huhns. Distributed Artificial Intelligence, Volume II. Research Notes in Artificial Intelligence. Morgan Kaufmann, San Mateo, CA, 1989.

    Google Scholar 

  49. M. P. Georgeff and F. F. Ingrand. Decision-making in embedded reasoning systems. In Proceedings of the 6th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, pages 972–978, 1989.

    Google Scholar 

  50. M. R. Genesereth and S. P. Ketchpel. Software agents. Communications of the ACM, 37(7):48–53, 1994.

    Google Scholar 

  51. M. P. Georgeff and A. L. Lansky. Procedural knowledge. In Proceedings of the IEEE Special Issue on Knowledge Representation, volume 74, pages 1383–1398, 1986.

    Google Scholar 

  52. P. J. Gmytrasiewicz. On reasoning about other agents. In M. Wooldridge, J. P. Müller, and M. Tambe, editors, Intelligent Agents — Proceedings of the 1995 Workshop on Agent Theories, Architectures, and Languages (ATAL-95), volume 1037 of Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence, pages 143–155. Springer-Verlag, 1996.

    Google Scholar 

  53. A. Haddadi. Communication and Cooperation in Agent Systems: A Pragmatic Theory, volume 1056 of Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence. Springer-Verlag, Heidelberg, 1996.

    Google Scholar 

  54. N. R. Jennings. Joint Intentions as a Model of Multi-Agent Cooperation. PhD thesis, Queen Mary and Westfield College, London, August 1992.

    Google Scholar 

  55. N. R. Jennings. Towards a cooperation knowledge level for collaborative problem solving. In Proceedings of the 10th European Conference on Artificial Intelligence, pages 224–228, Vienna, 1992.

    Google Scholar 

  56. L. P. Kaelbling. An architecture for intelligent reactive systems. In J. Allen, J. Hendler, and A. Tate, editors, Readings in Planning, pages 713–728. Morgan Kaufmann, 1990.

    Google Scholar 

  57. D. Kinny and M. P. Georgeff. Commitment and effectiveness of situated agents. In Proceedings of the Twelfth Intenrational Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI-91), pages 82–88, Sydney, Australia, 1991.

    Google Scholar 

  58. D. Kinny and M. Georgeff. Modelling and design of multi-agent systems. In J. P. Müller, M. J. Wooldridge, and N. R. Jennings, editors, Intelligent Agents III, Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence. Springer-Verlag, Heidelberg, 1997. To Appear.

    Google Scholar 

  59. D. Kinny, M. P. Georgeff, and A. S. Rao. A methodology and modelling technique for systems of BDI agents. In W. van de Velde and J. W. Perram, editors, Agents Breaking Away — 7th European Workshop on Modelling Autonomous Agents in a Multi-Agent World (MAAMAW'96), volume 1038 of Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence, pages 56–71. Springer-Verlag, 1996.

    Google Scholar 

  60. L. P. Kaelbling and S. J. Rosenschein. Action and planning in embedded agents. In [Mae90a], pages 35–48. 1990.

    Google Scholar 

  61. C. G. Langton. Artificial life. In C. G. Langton, editor, Artificial Life. Addison-Wesley, 1989.

    Google Scholar 

  62. D. M. Lyons and A. J. Hendriks. A practical approach to integrating reaction and deliberation. In Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on AI Planning Systems (AIPS), pages 153–162, San Mateo, CA, June 1992. Morgan Kaufmann.

    Google Scholar 

  63. A. Lux and D. D. Steiner. Understanding cooperation: an agent's perspective. In Proceedings of the First International Conference on Multiagent Systems, San Francisco, CA, 1995.

    Google Scholar 

  64. A. Lux. Kooperative Mensch-Maschine Arbeit — ein Modellierungsansatz und dessen Umsetzung im Rahmen des Systems MEKKA. PhD thesis, Universität des Saarlandes, Saarbrücken, 1995.

    Google Scholar 

  65. P. Maes. The dynamics of action selection. In Proceedings of IJCAI-89, pages 991–997, Detroit, Michigan, August 1989.

    Google Scholar 

  66. P. Maes, editor. Designing Autonomous Agents: Theory and Practice from Biology to Engineering and Back. MIT/Elsevier, 1990.

    Google Scholar 

  67. P. Maes. Situated agents can have goals. In [Mae90a], pages 49–70. 1990.

    Google Scholar 

  68. P. Maes. Agents that reduce work and information overload. Communications of the ACM, 37(3):31–40, 1994.

    Google Scholar 

  69. P. Maes. Modeling adaptive autonomous agnets. Artificial Life Journal, 1(1 & 2), 1994.

    Google Scholar 

  70. M. Mataric. Synthesizing group behaviors. In Proc. of IJCAI Workshop on Dynamically Interacting Robots, pages 1–10, Chambery, France, August 1993.

    Google Scholar 

  71. F. G. McCabe and K. L. Clark. April—agent process interaction language. In [WJ95], pages 324–340. 1995.

    Google Scholar 

  72. D. McDermott. Robot planning. Technical Report 861, Yale University, Department of Computer Science, 1991.

    Google Scholar 

  73. M. Minsky. The Society of Mind. Simon and Schuster (Touchstone), 1986.

    Google Scholar 

  74. J. Mayfield, Y. Labrou, and T. Finin. Evaluating KQML as an agent communication language. In M. Wooldridge, J. P. Müller, and M. Tambe, editors, Intelligent Agents — Proceedings of the 1995 Workshop on Agent Theories, Architectures, and Languages (ATAL-95), volume 1037 of Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence, pages 347–360. Springer-Verlag, 1996.

    Google Scholar 

  75. J. P. Müller and M. Pischel. An architecture for dynamically interacting agents. International Journal of Intelligent and Cooperative Information Systems (IJICIS), 3(1):25–45, 1994.

    Google Scholar 

  76. J. P. Müller. A cooperation model for autonomous agents. In Proceedings of the Third International Workshop on Agent theories, Architectures, and Languages (ATAL-96), Budapest, 1996.

    Google Scholar 

  77. J. P. Müller. The Design of Autonomous Agents — A Layered Approach, volume 1177 of Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence. Springer-Verlag, Heidelberg, 1996.

    Google Scholar 

  78. J.-J. C. Meyer, W. van der Hoek, and G. A. W. Vreeswijk. Epistemic logic for computer science: A tutorial (part one). In Bulletin of the EATCS, volume 44, pages 242–270. European Association for Theoretical Computer Science, 1991.

    Google Scholar 

  79. J. P. Müller, M. J. Wooldridge, and N. R. Jennings, editors. Intelligent Agents, volume III of Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence. Springer-Verlag, 1997.

    Google Scholar 

  80. T. J. Norman and D. Long. Alarms: An implementation of motivated agency. In M. Wooldridge, J. P. Müller, and M. Tambe, editors, Intelligent Agents — Proceedings of the 1995 Workshop on Agent Theories, Architectures, and Languages (ATAL-95), volume 1037 of Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence, pages 219–234. Springer-Verlag, 1996.

    Google Scholar 

  81. G. Nicolis and I. Prigogine. Self-organization in Non-equilibrium Systems. Wiley Interscience, New York, 1977.

    Google Scholar 

  82. A. Newell and H. A. Simon. Computer science as empirical enquiry: Symbols and search. Communications of the ACM, 19(3):113–126, 1976.

    Google Scholar 

  83. C. Petrie. Agent-based engineering, the web, and intelligence. To Appear in IEEE Expert, 1996.

    Google Scholar 

  84. J. E. Rumbaugh, M. Blaha, and W. Premerlani. Object-oriented Modeling and Design. Prentice Hall, 1991.

    Google Scholar 

  85. W. S. N. Reilly. Believable Social and Emotional Agents. PhD thesis, School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University, 1996.

    Google Scholar 

  86. A. S. Rao and M. P. Georgeff. Modeling Agents Within a BDI-Architecture. In R. Fikes and E. Sandewall, editors, Proc. of the 2rd International Conference on Principles of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning (KR'91), pages 473–484, Cambridge, Mass., April 1991. Morgan Kaufmann.

    Google Scholar 

  87. A. S. Rao and M. P. Georgeff. Modeling rational agents within a BDI-architecture. Technical Report 14, Australian AI Institute, Carlton, Australia, 1991.

    Google Scholar 

  88. A. S. Rao and M. P. Georgeff. An abstract architecture for rational agents. In Proc. of the 3rd International Conference on Principles of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning (KR '92), pages 439–449. Morgan Kaufmann, October 1992.

    Google Scholar 

  89. A. S. Rao and M. P. Georgeff. BDI-agents: from theory to practice. In Proceedings of the First Intl. Conference on Multiagent Systems, San Francisco, 1995.

    Google Scholar 

  90. S. Russell and P. Norvig. Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach. Prentice Hall, 1995.

    Google Scholar 

  91. J. S. Rosenschein and G. Zlotkin. Rules of Encounter: Designing Conventions for Automated Negotiation among Computers. MIT Press, 1994.

    Google Scholar 

  92. Earl D. Sacerdoti. The nonlinear nature of plans. In IJCAI-75, pages 206–218, 1975.

    Google Scholar 

  93. M. Straßer, J. Baumann, and F. Hohl. Beyond JAVA: Merging Corbabased mobile agents and WWW. In Joint W3C/OMG Workshop on Distributed Objects and Mobile Code (Accepted Position Paper), Boston, Massachusetts, 1996.

    Google Scholar 

  94. D. D. Steiner, A. Burt, M. Kolb, and Ch. Lerin. The conceptual framework of MAI2L. In Pre-Proceedings of MAAMAW'93, Neuchâtel, Switzerland, August 1993.

    Google Scholar 

  95. J. Sanborn and J. Hendler. A model of reaction for planning in dynamic environments. International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Engineering, 6(1):41–60, 1990.

    Google Scholar 

  96. Y. Shoham. Agent-oriented programming. Artificial Intelligence, 60:51–92, 1993.

    Google Scholar 

  97. H. A. Simon. The Sciences of the Artificial. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2nd edition, 1981.

    Google Scholar 

  98. A. Sloman and R. Poli. SIM_AGENT: A toolkit for exploring agent designs. In M. Wooldridge, J. P. Müller, and M. Tambe, editors, Intelligent Agents — Proceedings of the 1995 Workshop on Agent Theories, Architectures, and Languages (ATAL-95), volume 1037 of Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence, pages 392–407. Springer-Verlag, 1996.

    Google Scholar 

  99. L. Steels. Cooperation between distributed agents through self-organization. In Y. Demazeau and J.-P. Müller, editors, Decentralized A.I., pages 175–196. North-Holland, 1990.

    Google Scholar 

  100. L. A. Suchman. Plans and Situated Actions. Cambridge Universtiy Press, Cambridge, 1987.

    Google Scholar 

  101. S. R. Thomas. PLACA, an Agent Oriented Programming Language. PhD thesis, Stanford University, 1993. Available as Stanford University Computer Science Department Technical Report STAN-CS-93-1487.

    Google Scholar 

  102. S. R. Thomas. The PLACA agent programming language. In [WJ95], pages 355–370. 1995.

    Google Scholar 

  103. M. Y. Vardi. On epistemic logic and logical omniscience. In Proc. of the First Conference on Theoretical Aspects of Reasoning about Knowledge (TARK'86), pages 293–306. Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, 1986.

    Google Scholar 

  104. D. E. Wilkins. Practical Planning: Extending the Classical AI Planning Paradigm. Morgan Kaufmann, San Mateo, CA, 1988.

    Google Scholar 

  105. M. J. Wooldridge and N. R. Jennings, editors. Intelligent Agents — Theories, Architectures, and Languages, volume 890 of Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence. Springer-Verlag, 1995.

    Google Scholar 

  106. M. J. Wooldridge, J. P. Müller, and M. Tambe, editors. Intelligent Agents II, volume 1037 of Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence. Springer-Verlag, 1996.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Editor information

Lawrence Cavedon Anand Rao Wayne Wobcke

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 1997 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this paper

Cite this paper

Müller, J.P. (1997). Control architectures for autonomous and interacting agents: A survey. In: Cavedon, L., Rao, A., Wobcke, W. (eds) Intelligent Agent Systems Theoretical and Practical Issues. IAS 1996. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 1209. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-62686-7_25

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-62686-7_25

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-62686-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-68433-6

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

Publish with us

Policies and ethics