A parallel BDI agent architecture

In this paper, we proposed a parallel architecture for BDI agents. The agent built with this architecture has the ability of deliberating on new beliefs and executing current intentions at once. The agent also has the ability to prioritize the deliberations and intention executions so it is able to respond quickly to circumstance changes and all the thinking and acting are done at appropriate times. It is in fact a more natural way to simulate human minds since we are always doing several things simultaneously. The parallel architecture consists of three parallel running components which are the belief manager, the intention generator and the intention executor. The coordination between the parallel components is done by interrupts of different priorities. The various levels of priorities include matters that need to be deliberated/acted on (1) immediately and in shortest time possible, (2) immediately without hurrying, (3) at some fixed time in future, (4) in future when the agent has time. Matters at these different priority levels will be handled differently. To evaluate this architecture, a simulation system of vessel agents traveling in sea is developed. The experiments show that the agent is able to respond according to expectations.