Formal specification and validation of multi-agent behaviour using TLA+ and TLC model checker

  • Authors:

  • Toufik Taibi

  • Affiliations:

  • Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario N6A 5B9, Canada

  • Venue:
  • International Journal of Artificial Intelligence and Soft Computing
  • Year:
  • 2008

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Abstract

This work views agent coordination from a purely behaviouralviewpoint. We use the Temporal Logic of Actions (TLA) to formallyspecify the behaviour of individual agents as well as the behaviourof a coalition of agents by composing the behaviour of individualagents. We view a coalition of agents as being initiated by anagent wishing to delegate some of its tasks to others. We do notdiscuss the issues related to coalition formation here but ratherfocus on how agent coordination can be achieved through behaviourcomposition. We have built a generic and rigorous approach toformally specify such behaviour composition from the behaviour ofindividual agents. To validate our approach, we have successfullyapplied it to the blocks world and model checked the specificationsusing TLC - the TLA model checker.