Intelligent agents stand out as a potential path toward artificial general intelligence (AGI). Thus, researchers have dedicated significant effort to diverse implementations for them. Benefiting from recent progress in large language models (LLMs), LLM-based agents that use universal natural language as an interface exhibit robust generalization capabilities across various applications -- from serving as autonomous general-purpose task assistants to applications in coding, social, and economic domains, LLM-based agents offer extensive exploration opportunities. This paper surveys current research to provide an in-depth overview of LLM-based intelligent agents within single-agent and multi-agent systems. It covers their definitions, research frameworks, and foundational components such as their composition, cognitive and planning methods, tool utilization, and responses to environmental feedback. We also delve into the mechanisms of deploying LLM-based agents in multi-agent systems, including multi-role collaboration, message passing, and strategies to alleviate communication issues between agents. The discussions also shed light on popular datasets and application scenarios. We conclude by envisioning prospects for LLM-based agents, considering the evolving landscape of AI and natural language processing.

对基于大型语言模型（LLM）的智能代理进行了深入调查，涵盖了单代理和多代理系统中的定义、研究框架、组成、认知和规划方法、工具利用、对环境反馈的响应，以及在多代理系统中部署LLM-based代理的机制，包括多角色协作、信息传递和缓解代理之间通信问题的策略，同时介绍了流行的数据集和应用场景，最后展望了基于LLM的代理在人工智能和自然语言处理领域的前景。

探索基于大型语言模型的智能代理：定义、方法与前景