Agent Architectures

This chapter examines the desirable characteristics of an intelligent complex agent and describes the necessary modules needed to implement such desirable characteristics. The internal architecture of an agent is essentially the description of its modules and how they work together. Agent architectures used in various agent-based systems range from the very simple to the very complex. The Communication Interface of an agent is its only interface to other agents. It is usually implemented using methods or functions for receiving messages from and sending messages to other agents. Many different agent architectures have been described in the literature for agent-based concurrent design and manufacturing systems. Agent architectures described in the literature may be classified into the following four categories according to the agent’s behavior: deliberative, reactive, collaborative and hybrid architectures. In reactive agent architectures, deliberative reasoning is replaced by emergent behavior, which adapts to changes in the real-world environment in a timely way.