Logic-based specification languages for intelligent software agents

  • Authors:

  • Viviana Mascardi;Maurizio Martelli;Leon Sterling

  • Affiliations:

  • DISI, Università di Genova, Via Dodecaneso 35, 16146, Genova, Italy (e-mail: mascardi@disi.unige.it);DISI, Università di Genova, Via Dodecaneso 35, 16146, Genova, Italy (e-mail: martelli@disi.unige.it);Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering, The University of Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Australia (e-mail: leon@cs.mu.oz.au)

  • Venue:
  • Theory and Practice of Logic Programming
  • Year:
  • 2004

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Abstract

The research field of Agent-Oriented Software Engineering (AOSE) aims to find abstractions, languages, methodologies and toolkits for modeling, verifying, validating and prototyping complex applications conceptualized as Multiagent Systems (MASs). A very lively research sub-field studies how formal methods can be used for AOSE. This paper presents a detailed survey of six logic-based executable agent specification languages that have been chosen for their potential to be integrated in our ARPEGGIO project, an open framework for specifying and prototyping a MAS. The six languages are $\textsf{ConGolog}$, $\textsf{AGENT-0}$, the $\textsf{IMPACT}$ agent programming language, $\textsf{DyLOG}$, Concurrent $\textsf{METATEM}$ and ${\cal E}_{hhf}$. For each executable language, the logic foundations are described and an example of use is shown. A comparison of the six languages and a survey of similar approaches complete the paper, together with considerations of the advantages of using logic-based languages in MAS modeling and prototyping.