Formal Development of Reactive Agent-Based Systems

Abstract

Recent advances in both the testing and verification of software based on formal specifications have reached a point where the ideas can be applied in a powerful way in the design of agent-based systems. The software engineering research has highlighted a number of important issues: the importance of the type of modelling technique used; the careful design of the model to enable powerful testing techniques to be used; the automated verification of the behavioural properties of the system; and the need to provide a mechanism for translating the formal models into executable software in a simple and transparent way.