Intelligent Systems Theory

Lecture Eighteen
Dan Humpert
Associate Professor
University of Cincinnati
Mechanical Engineering

Agenda
Introduction
Intelligent

Agent Definition
Virtual Agent: Example
Simple Agent Taxonomy
Agent Properties
Agent Types

Introduction
We

have been introduced to many Artificial

Intelligence (AI) Algorithms.

These can be trained to do pattern recognition

such as analyzing the walking pattern or gait of a
senior citizen.
These can be trained to navigate a path or to
classify unknown data.
These can be trained to make gaming decisions
such as winning a chess championship.

Introduction
We

have been introduced to many Robots.

These can be telehealth robots to assist senior

citizens to stay in their home.
These can be exoskeletons with embedded computers
that can assist a senior citizen with simple tasks such
as standing up and sitting down.
These can be virtual robots such as network robots or
botnets that can be both positive in the case of energy
botnets or negative in the case of viruses.

Introduction

In this lecture all of the above AI algorithms and all of

the above robots would be considered intelligent
agents.
These can be thought of as intelligent tools.
The goal of this course is to get to the discussion of
designing, planning and controlling an intelligent
system that can mimic the human brain and how it
works with a specific application.
This design, plan and control will be discussed in the
next lecture.

Chapter 11 Intelligent Agents

Chapter Outline

Intelligent Agents
Definition:

An autonomous entity that exists

in an environment and acts in a rational way.
An agent is commonly made up of a number
of elements.

One or more sensors to perceive the environment

One or more effectors that manipulate the
environment.
A control system that can work both hierarchically
and/or cooperatively.

Intelligent Agent: AI Algorithm

Virtual Agent: Example, Web Spider

Gathers and filters information

for another party.
Uses a primary sensor of HTTP
as a means to gather data from
the web pages.
Control system drives the
web/data parsing and filtering.
Uses HTTP to navigate the web
environment.
Can communicate with a
managing user through email
using Simple Mail Transport
Protocol, SMTP.

Simple Agent Taxonomy

Hard Agents

Robots
Humans/Animals

Soft Agents

Virtual Agents/Viruses
AI Algorithms

Agent Properties

Rational

Navigate without guidance

Lives over time (even
through system shutdowns)

Communicative

Can communicate with

other agents

Cooperative

Work with other agents to

achieve goals

Mobile

Persistent

Make the right decision

Autonomous

Can navigate environments

including networks and
other computer systems

Adaptive

Can learn and be flexible in

dynamic environments

Agent Environment Properties

Observability

Are all elements of the

environment observable
to the agent?

Episodic

Change

Is the environment static

or dynamic?

Does the environment

change as the agent
expects? Randomness
gives stochastic.

Continuous

Deterministic

Does the agent perceive the

environment and take an
action? Or does it need
prior experience to take a
sequential action.
Are there finite or infinite
possible states in the
environment?

Multi-Agent

Are their multiple agents in

the environment?

Chess-Playing Agent Example

Fully Observable: the chess board is fully observable,

nothing is hidden.
Static: the period during which the chess agent makes a
move, the environment is static.
Deterministic: the board changes on the move selected by
the agentdeterministic.
Episodic: chess agent acts in episodes alternating between
agent moves and opponent moves.
Multi-agent: the environment is multi-agent considering the
opponentcan be human or another chess-playing agent.

First-Person-Shooter Game

The virtual environment is occupied by a number of

non-player character (NPC) agents and one or more
human agents. NPC Properties:
Partial

Observability: ability to hide.

Dynamic: environment dynamically changes without any
action by the NPC.
Stochastic: an action taken by an NPC may result in
different responses.
Continuous: environment is continuous compared to turnbased strategy games.
Multi-Agent: can be multiple human agents and multiple
cooperative/neutral/competitive NPCs.

Agent Types: Interface Agents

To combat information
overload and help the
user focus on what is
most important, an
intelligent interface
agent was designed.
The agent learns under
what circumstances
certain actions are to be
taken.

Agent Types: Entertainment Agents

Virtual

reality environments.
Animated agents in computer-generated
environments.
Example: Ananovas talking head virtual
newscaster that reads news from real-time
using text-to-speech technology and uses
computer animation to create a lifelike
newscaster that lip syncs with the spoken
text.

Agent Types: Game Agents

One

of the earliest users of intelligent agents

was the video gaming industry.
NPC example from before uses autonomous
friends/foes to add to the realism of the video
game.
NPC can be cooperative or neutral but are
most often competitive working against the
players ability to achieve desired goals.

Agent Types: ChatterBots

Conversational agents have a long history in

Intelligent Systems.
One of the earliest examples is Joseph
Weizenbaums Eliza written in the LISP language in
1966. Eliza simply looked for patterns and
rephrased the input back to the human in the form of
a question.
Artificial Intelligence Markup Language (AIML) is an
interpreter that has won the Loebner Prize of the
Turing Test for most human computer three times.

Agent Types: Mobile Agents

Mobile agents possess the characteristics of mobility.

A virtual agent has the ability to migrate from one host
computer to another.
In the example on the next slide, the agent is stationary
at a host node collecting data from another node. The
constraint is that the network must be available for
communication. If the network becomes unavailable,
the ability to communicate is broken and a brittle
system results.

Brittleness of Non-Mobile Agent

Agent Types: Mobile Agents

An alternative is to bring data collection to the

source.
As shown on the next slide, a mobile agent migrates
from Host A to Host B where the data is sourced.
This agent could be a control system that reads the
source data and then interacts with the system to
make adjustments. The control agent from Host A
interacts with the data acquisition agent from Host B,
acts on the data and then returns to Host A.

Increasing System Reliability with

Mobile Agents

Mobile Agents
Many

applications:

Network Technical Assistance: mobile agents

allow help desk personnel to analyze a users
computer and improve the users computer
environment.
Network monitoring agents are used in computer
networks, energy networks, and other networks
monitors the health of the network.
Process Control: agents monitor and control the
devices to which they are attached.

Agent Types: User Assistance Agents

Intelligent email handling agent.

Internet search agents.

Allows a user to create search alerts based on keywords. When

an item matches the search alert, the agent saves the link for the
user.

Calendar agents.

Learns to intelligently prioritize, sort and archive email for a user.

A users agent negotiates meeting times with other users agents

to optimize all participants time.

Auction agents. Communicate with other auction agents to bid

on goods per a users request.

Agent Types: Hybrid Agents

Agents typically have multiple characteristics.

Example: consider an interface agent that securely
relays information between consoles in an operations
center. The agent consolidates the information to be
relayed and then migrates to the destination console.
Once there it opens a window to the consoles user and
then provides the data in its needed form.
This agent demonstrates a number of characteristics
such as mobility, autonomy, and the ability to
communicate through a defined interface.