Quantitative Verification and Strategy Synthesis for BDI Agents

Archibald, B. , Calder, M. , Sevegnani, M. and Xu, M. (2023) Quantitative Verification and Strategy Synthesis for BDI Agents. In: NASA Formal Methods Symposium (NFM), Houston, TX, USA, 16-18 May 2023, pp. 241-259. ISBN 9783031331695 (doi: 10.1007/978-3-031-33170-1_15)

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Abstract

Belief-Desire-Intention (BDI) agents feature probabilistic outcomes, e.g. the chance an agent tries but fails to open a door, and non-deterministic choices: what plan/intention to execute next? We want to reason about agents under both probabilities and non-determinism to determine, for example, probabilities of mission success and the strategies used to maximise this. We define a Markov Decision Process describing the semantics of the Conceptual Agent Notation (CAN) agent language that supports non-deterministic event, plan, and intention selection, as well as probabilistic action outcomes. The model is derived through an encoding to Milner’s Bigraphs and executed using the BigraphER tool. We show, using probabilistic model checkers PRISM and Storm, how to reason about agents including: probabilistic and reward-based properties, strategy synthesis, and multi-objective analysis. This analysis provides verification and optimisation of BDI agent design and implementation.

Item Type:Conference Proceedings
Additional Information:This work is supported by the EPSRC, under PETRAS SRF grant MAGIC (EP/S035362/1), S4: Science of Sensor Systems Software (EP/N007565/1), and an Amazon Research Award on Automated Reasoning.
Status:Published
Refereed:Yes
Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID:Calder, Professor Muffy and Xu, Dr Mengwei and Sevegnani, Dr Michele and Archibald, Dr Blair
Authors: Archibald, B., Calder, M., Sevegnani, M., and Xu, M.
College/School:College of Science and Engineering > School of Computing Science
ISSN:0302-9743
ISBN:9783031331695
Published Online:03 June 2023
Copyright Holders:Copyright © 2023 The Authors
First Published:First published in Lecture Notes in Computer Science 13903: 241-259
Publisher Policy:Reproduced in accordance with the publisher copyright policy

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Project CodeAward NoProject NamePrincipal InvestigatorFunder's NameFunder RefLead Dept
172422Science of Sensor System Software (SSSS)Muffy CalderEngineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)EP/N007565/1Computing Science