Visualized and Abstract Formal Modeling towards the Multi-Agent Systems
Ghulam Ali, Sher Afzal Khan, Hafiz Farooq Ahmad, Nazir Ahmad Zafar, Saudi Arabia · 2012
Multi-agent systems technology has generated lots of incitements, because of it used for distributed, intelligent and safety critical system. The failure of some system may cause the loss of human life, severe injuries, loss of money and environmental damages. To get the robust, safe and reliable multi-agent system it requires formal modeling and step by step refinement for its construction and development. Some of the formal specification-based languages, such as, VDM, Object-Z and RAISE have been used for its modeling using abstract modeling approach. However, due to the distributed environment of agents and their communications, both graphical and abstract modeling is required to capture the agent behavior and their communication. In this research we present a formal modeling technique based on communicating stream X-machine and Z notation to formally specify the multi-agent systems. Initially, we decompose the complex system into standalone agents and model it using X-machine. Further, the model is specified using Z-notation. For communication between agents, we specify communication mechanism using communicating X-machine. Moreover, the model is transform to Z-notation to prove its syntax by using Z/EVES tool. The main theme of the paper is to see the visual development of agents using X and stream X-machine and then to transform it to the abstract model for its proof and syntax verification.