Environment program
Environment program is the term for software that provides an environment for a software agent .
Reasons for environment programs
Agent systems are usually first created on the computer before they are used on real architectures (e.g. robots). In this development phase, environment programs serve the developers as a test environment for the agent.
The advantages of the programs are that they can be easily monitored and the environment can be easily manipulated and varied.
Properties of environments
There are five environmental characteristics:
Accessible ↔ inaccessible
An environment is accessible precisely when the agent receives a complete picture of his environment through his sensors . (Sensors report all aspects of the world that are necessary or helpful for finding an action.)
Deterministic ↔ indeterministic
An environment is deterministic if and only if the subsequent state of the environment depends only on the current state and the agent's action.
Episodic ↔ not episodic
An environment is episodic if and only if all of the agent's perceptions can be divided into episodes. (The actions are only dependent on the perceptions of the current episode.)
Static ↔ dynamic
An environment is dynamic precisely when it can change during the process of finding an action.
Semi-dynamic special case : The environment is static in itself. However, the agent has to make decisions under time pressure and is not able to evaluate all aspects of the environment in every case.
Discrete ↔ continuous
An environment is discrete if there is a clearly distinguishable and well-defined number of perceptions and actions.