Using specification and description language to formalize multiagent systems

Abstract

Simulation is a multidisciplinary field of study used in different scopes, involving people with different areas of knowledge and backgrounds. Formal languages become important tools in order to build, understand, and maintain the simulation models. The formalization of an intelligent agent is not an easy task because of the complex behavior it owns. In this study, we apply a formal and graphical language, called Specification and Description Language, to formalize an intelligent agent. This formalization captures the complete and unambiguous behavior of the agents and simplifies the understanding of the agents behaviors because of the graphic structure of the language. This formal representation of the model also simplifies joining multiagent system (MAS) models and interaction models through the formalization. In addition, because Specification and Description Language is a standard language, several tools are capable of understanding the model, which leads to an automatic implementation. Copyright © 2014 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.