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Verifiable Multi-agent Programs

  • Conference paper
Programming Multi-Agent Systems (ProMAS 2003)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 3067))

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Abstract

AgentSpeak is a reactive planning language for programming autonomous agents. It has recently been shown that model checking techniques can be applied to the verification of AgentSpeak systems, through a translation to Promela, the model specification language for the SPIN LTL model-checking system. In this paper, we introduce an alternative verification approach for AgentSpeak, by translating AgentSpeak to Java and then applying JPF2, a general purpose Java model checker. The primary advantage of this approach is that Java is the language of choice for most agent implementations, and the approach is thus much closer to the current practice of agent development than the Promela-based approach. Also, models of AgentSpeak agents represented in Java are both clearer and more natural than those given in Promela. We examine both alternatives by means of a practical application, provide a qualitative comparison between them, and identify some key issues for future research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, L69 3BX, UK

    Rafael H. Bordini, Michael Fisher & Michael Wooldridge

  2. RIACS/NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA, 94035, USA

    Willem Visser

Authors
  1. Rafael H. Bordini
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  2. Michael Fisher
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  3. Willem Visser
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  4. Michael Wooldridge
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Utrecht University, P.O. Box 80.089, 3508 TB, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Mehdi M. Dastani

  2. Clausthal University of Technology, Julius-Albert-Str. 4, 38678, Clausthal-Zellerfeld, Germany

    Jürgen Dix

  3. University Paris X and LIP6 (University Paris 6 and CNRS - UMR 7606), 8, Rue du Capitaine Scott, 75015, Paris, France

    Amal El Fallah-Seghrouchni

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© 2004 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Bordini, R.H., Fisher, M., Visser, W., Wooldridge, M. (2004). Verifiable Multi-agent Programs. In: Dastani, M.M., Dix, J., El Fallah-Seghrouchni, A. (eds) Programming Multi-Agent Systems. ProMAS 2003. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 3067. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-25936-7_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-25936-7_4

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-22180-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-25936-7

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