Reasoning about time in a BDI architecture

  • Authors:

  • Bevan Jarvis;Dan Corbett;Lakhmi C. Jain

  • Affiliations:

  • School of Electrical and Information Engineering, University of South, Australia;Science Applications International Corporation;School of Electrical and Information Engineering, University of South, Australia

  • Venue:
  • KES'05 Proceedings of the 9th international conference on Knowledge-Based Intelligent Information and Engineering Systems - Volume Part II
  • Year:
  • 2005

  • Innovations in intelligent agents

    KES'05 Proceedings of the 9th international conference on Knowledge-Based Intelligent Information and Engineering Systems - Volume Part II

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Abstract

The philosophical roots of the Belief-Desire-Intention model lie in Bratman's formulation of an intention theory of planning, in which he sought to make sense of the notion of future-directed intention. Implementations of BDI mainly follow the original Procedural Reasoning System model. BDI has a sound logical basis, exemplified by the Logic Of Rational Agents. While the LORA formulation has a temporal logic component, however, this does not translate into any ability for the agent to reason about actual time. Being able to reason about actual time would bring significant benefits for BDI agents, such as the ability for agents to communicate deadlines and to plan and schedule activities in a cooperating group. Given a suitable representation of temporal knowledge, an agent could learn about the temporal aspects of its own actions and processes, and this knowledge could be used as input to the planning process. This paper outlines a possible implementation strategy for the representation of, and the capacity to reason about, actual time.