Jump to the Architectural Overview Menu page.
Jump to the Home page.

An Overview of HOMER

HOMER is modeled after an unmanned submarine. He exists in a simulated two-dimensional sea world. The world also has a time component. 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 what have you.

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. ( click here for sample dialogs ) HOMER answers questions posed by users and carries out instructions given by users. HOMER is intended to be a complete agent capable of planning, reasoning, perceiving, and reflecting. One of Vere and Bickmore's goals in designing HOMER is to show the feasibility of integrating these facets of intelligent behavior:

"The underlying thesis of this work is that AI component research and computer hardware have in fact progressed to the point where it is now possible, by a resolute effort, to construct a complete integrated agent." [1]

Characteristics

Sources and References

1. Vere, S., and Bickmore, T., "A Basic Agent", Computational Intelligence 6 , 1990, pp. 41-60.