Formalization of Interaction Events in Multi-agent Systems

The problem of the description of interaction between spatially divided agents in the form of dialogues is explored. The concept of processes synchronization is analyzed to formalize the specification of interaction at the level of events constituting the processes. The approach to formalization of the description of conditions of synchronization when both the independent behavior and the communications of agents can be presented at a logic level is offered. It is shown, that the collective behavior of agents can be specified by the synthetic temporal logic that unites linear and branching time temporal logics.

Developing Agent Interaction Protocols with PRALU

The purpose of the paper is to explore the possibility of applying existing formal theories of description and design of distributed and concurrent systems to interaction protocols for real-time multi-agent systems. In particular it is shown how the language PRALU, proposed for description of parallel logical control algorithms and rooted in the Petri net formalism, can be used for the modeling of complex concurrent conversations between agents in a multi-agent system. It is demonstrated with a known example of English auction on how to specify an agent interaction protocol using considered means.