Publication Type

Journal Article

Version

publishedVersion

Publication Date

7-2011

Abstract

This paper presents a hybrid agent architecture that integrates the behaviours of BDI agents, specifically desire and intention, with a neural network based reinforcement learner known as Temporal DifferenceFusion Architecture for Learning and COgNition (TD-FALCON). With the explicit maintenance of goals, the agent performs reinforcement learning with the awareness of its objectives instead of relying on external reinforcement signals. More importantly, the intention module equips the hybrid architecture with deliberative planning capabilities, enabling the agent to purposefully maintain an agenda of actions to perform and reducing the need of constantly sensing the environment. Through reinforcement learning, plans can also be learned and evaluated without the rigidity of user-defined plans as used in traditional BDI systems. For intention and reinforcement learning to work cooperatively, two strategies are presented for combining the intention module and the reactive learning module for decision making in a real time environment. Our case study based on aminefield navigation domain investigates how the desire and intention modules may cooperatively enhance the capability of a pure reinforcement learner. The empirical results show that the hybrid architecture is able to learn plans efficiently and tap both intentional and reactive action execution to yield a robust performance.

Keywords

BDI architecture, Reinforcement learning, Plan learning, Self-organizing neural networks, Minefield navigation

Discipline

Computer and Systems Architecture | Databases and Information Systems | Software Engineering

Research Areas

Data Science and Engineering

Publication

Expert Systems with Applications

Volume

38

Issue

7

First Page

8477

Last Page

8487

ISSN

0957-4174

Identifier

10.1016/j.eswa.2011.01.045

Publisher

Elsevier

Additional URL

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eswa.2011.01.045

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