Unlike other architectures, Homer's Architecture was not designed for general intelligence. Its underlying philosophy was the synthesis of several currently distinct areas of AI to form one complete system. Vere and Bickmore believe that the research in the fields of planning, learning, natural language understanding, robotic navigation, etc. had progressed sufficiently to allow the creating of a useful architecture and agent.
HOMER is modeled after an unmanned submarine. It exists in a simulated two-dimensional sea world. The world also has temporal extent. The agent's actions and external events in the world are distinguished by their coordinates in a plane and the time at which they take place. A graphical representation of this world is displayed on a terminal to fascilitate interaction with the user. HOMER's environment contains a variety of objects one might expect to find in an aquatic setting; fish, birds, boats, piers, buoys, islands, and other agents.
The agent uses a natural language text interface to communicate with users. Through this interface the agent can receive information about its world and the tasks that it is to perform. (Here are some sample dialogs.) HOMER answers questions posed by users and carries out instructions given by users.