State-space reduction techniques in agent verification

Bordini, Rafael H.; Fisher, Michael; Visser, Willem; Wooldridge, Michael; Jennings, Nicholas R.; Sierra, Carles; Sonenberg, Liz; Tambe, Milind

Abstract

We have developed a set of tools to allow the use of model-checking techniques for the verification of systems directly implemented in an agent-oriented programming language. The success of model checking as a verification technique for large systems is dependent partly on its use in combination with various state-space reduction techniques. An important example of such techniques is property-based slicing. This paper introduces an algorithm for property-based slicing of AgentSpeak multi-agent systems. We apply our approach to the AgentSpeak code for a scenario inspired by routine tasks of autonomous Mars rovers, and explain how slicing reduces the search space in theory. We consider experiments on such scenarios, and initial results show a significant reduction in the state space, thus indicating that this approach can have an important impact on the practicality of agent verification.

Citation

Bordini, R. H., Fisher, M., Visser, W., Wooldridge, M., Jennings, N. R., Sierra, C., Sonenberg, L., & Tambe, M. (2004, July). State-space reduction techniques in agent verification. Presented at Third International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems : AAMAS-2004., New York

• Presentation Conference Type: Conference Paper (published)
• Conference Name: Third International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems : AAMAS-2004.
• Publication Date: 2004-07
• Deposit Date: Feb 25, 2008
• Publisher: Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
• Volume: II
• Pages: 896-903
• Book Title: Third International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, AAMAS 2004, 19-23 July 2004, New York ; proceedings.
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/aamas.2004.242630
• Keywords: Agent-oriented programming, Property-based slicing.
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1695122
• Publisher URL: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/freeabs_all.jsp?isnumber=29991&arnumber=1373607&count=286&index=108