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Making model checking feasible for GOAL

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Abstract

Agent Programming Languages have been studied for over 20 years for programming complex decision-making for autonomous systems. The GOAL agent programming language is particularly interesting since it depends on automated planning based on beliefs and goals to determine behavior rather than preprogrammed planning by developers. Model checking is a powerful verification technique to guarantee the safety of an autonomous system. Despite studies of model checking in other agent programming languages, GOAL lacks support for model checking of GOAL programs. The fundamental challenge is to make GOAL programs feasible for model checking. In this paper, we tackle this fundamental issue. First, we formalize the syntax and semantics of the logic underpinning stratified single-agent GOAL programs. Second, we devise an algorithm for transforming a stratified single-agent GOAL program to a transition system that is equivalent in terms of operational semantics, enabling model checking. Third, we develop an automated translator for a stratified single-agent GOAL program. The translator consists of (1) the automated transformation of a GOAL program into its operational semantically equivalent transition system, and (2) the interface generation of the generated transition system into a Prism model, an input for two probabilistic symbolic model checkers: Storm and Prism. Moreover, we point out that we will extend the applicability of the transformation algorithm and its implementation to all stratified GOAL programs.

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Data Availability Statement

The implementation of the automated translator for GOAL is available at https://github.com/AnonymousSubm/Automated_Translator. For the source code of the GOAL implementation of our case study (Blocks world), we refer to the GOAL example project Tower provided in the Eclipse plugin for GOAL.

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Acknowledgements

This research is partially funded by the Research Fund KU Leuven.

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  1. KU Leuven, Dept. of Computer Science, imec-DistriNet, B-3001, Leuven, Belgium

    Yi Yang & Tom Holvoet

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  1. Yi Yang
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Correspondence to Yi Yang.

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Yang, Y., Holvoet, T. Making model checking feasible for GOAL. Ann Math Artif Intell 92, 837–853 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10472-023-09898-3

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