An agent architecture is the overall structure that defines how an intelligent agent perceives the environment, processes information, and acts to achieve its goals. It provides the blueprint for connecting the sensing, thinking, and acting components of the agent. The effectiveness of an AI system depends greatly on the design of its architecture, as it determines how efficiently the agent can operate in complex and uncertain environments.
At the most basic level, every intelligent agent is composed of three essential parts:
- Sensors – devices or software modules that perceive the environment by collecting data.
- Actuators – mechanisms that allow the agent to take actions and influence the environment.
- Processing Unit (also called Agent Program) – the reasoning component that decides which action to perform based on percepts.
When combined, these components form the agent–environment interaction loop, where the agent continuously senses, processes, and acts.
General Agent Architecture
The general structure of an AI agent can be understood through the following steps:
- Perception: The agent receives input from the environment through its sensors. This input is called a percept.
- State Representation: In advanced agents, the percept is stored and used to build an internal representation or model of the environment.
- Decision-Making: Based on the percept and internal knowledge, the agent selects an appropriate action. This may involve simple rules, goal-directed planning, or optimization using utility.
- Action Execution: The chosen action is carried out through the actuators, which change the state of the environment.
- Feedback Loop: The environment responds to the action, generating new percepts, and the cycle continues.
Diagram – Agent Architecture
Here’s a simple conceptual diagram :
+-----------------------+| Environment |+-----------------------+ ↑ ↓ [Percepts] [Actions] ↑ ↓+-----------------------+| Sensors |+-----------------------+ ↓+-----------------------+| Agent Program || (Decision Making) |+-----------------------+ ↓+-----------------------+| Actuators |+-----------------------+ |