The rationality of the simple, vacuum cleaner agent, we had to specify the performance measure, the environment and the agents actuators and sensors. We will group all these together under the heading of the task environment, we call this PEAS ( Performance, Environment, Actuators, Sensors) descriptions. Example: PEAS description for the taxi’s task environment – figure (3)

1] First, What is the performance measure to which we would like our automated driver to aspire?

Desirable qualities include getting to the correct destination, minimizing fuel consumption wear and tear, minimizing the trip time or cost. Minimizing violations of traffic laws and disturbance to other drivers, maximizing safety and passenger comfort, maximizing profits.

2] Next, What is the driving environment that the taxi will face?

Any taxi driver must deal with a variety of roads, ranging from rural lanes and urban alleys of 12-lane freeways. The road contain other traffic, pedestrians, stray animals, road works olicecarg, puddles and potholes. The taxi must also interact with potential and actual passengers.

3] The actuator available to an automated taxi will be more or less the same as those available to a human driver. Control over the engine through the accelerator and control over steering and breaking. In addition it will need output to display screen or voice synthesizer to talk back to the passengers and perhaps some way to communicate with other vehicles, politely.

Figure (3) PEAS description of the task.

Environment for an automated taxi.

4] Sensors includes one or more controllable TV cameras, the speedometer and the odometer. To control the vehicle property, especially on curves, it should have an accelerometer it will also need to know the mechanical state of the vehicle so it will need the usual array of engine and electrical system sensors GPS to give it accurate position information with respect to an electrical map and infrared or sonar sensors to detect distances to other cars and obstacles, finally it will need keyboard or microphone for the passenger to request a destination.