Agents and Intelligent Systems
Explore how intelligent agents perceive their environment and make decisions to perform useful actions. Understand various agent types such as simple reflex, goal-based, and learning agents, and see how they function to solve tasks in real-world AI applications.
We'll cover the following...
We are interested in building intelligent systems that mimic human behavior. Let's study the key elements for bringing such systems to life.
Agents
An agent is a program or machine that can sense what's happening around it and make decisions to do something useful. It tries to achieve a goal by sensing its surroundings and then acting in a way that will get it closer to that goal. In other words, an agent can sense the environment using sensors and act accordingly through actuators.
The table below shows some interesting examples of agents with sensors and actuators.
Agent Type | Sensors | Actuators |
Human | Eyes, ears, nose, skin, tongue | Hands, legs, mouth, vocal cords |
Bird | Eyes, ears, beak, feathers | Wings, legs, beak |
Robot | Cameras, infrared range finders, ultrasonic sensors, touch sensors | Motors, robotic arms, wheels |
Autonomous vehicle | Radar, cameras, GPS, ultrasonic sensors | Steering mechanism, brakes, throttle control |
Agent function
Agents receive input through sensors; we call this input "percept." A series of inputs perceived by an agent through its sensors is called percept history. Typically, an agent's decision ...