Logic-based specification languages for intelligent software agents
Viviana Mascardi, Maurizio Martelli, LEON S. STERLING · Theory and Practice of Logic Programming · 2004
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.