A Reference Architecture of a Hybrid Learning Agent

A software reference architecture specifies a generic architectural solution for the development of specific software architectures. It includes common components to all software architectures and their relationships, a common vocabulary, a mapping methodology for realizing a specific architecture and good design practices. Software agents represent an evolution of traditional software, having the ability to control their own behavior and acting with autonomy. Typically, software agents act reactively, where actions and perceptions are predefined at design time, or in a deliberative way, where the corresponding action for a given perception is found at run time through a process of reasoning. However, to perform better, software agents should act using both forms of behavior with learning abilities in a hybrid way. In this paper, a reference architecture that specifies a generic architectural solution for the development of specific architectures of hybrid learning agents is presented. An example of realization of this architecture in the network intrusion domain is also presented.