Authors:
Ilias Sakellariou
1
;
Dimitris Dranidis
2
;
Marina Ntika
3
and
Petros Kefalas
2
Affiliations:
1
University of Macedonia, Greece
;
2
The University of Sheffield International Faculty and City College, Greece
;
3
Research Centre of the International Faculty of The University of Sheffield and CITY College, Greece
Keyword(s):
Formal Methods, NetLogo, Agent Based Simulation, Test Case Generation.
Related
Ontology
Subjects/Areas/Topics:
Agents
;
Artificial Intelligence
;
Bioinformatics
;
Biomedical Engineering
;
Enterprise Information Systems
;
Information Systems Analysis and Specification
;
Methodologies and Technologies
;
Operational Research
;
Programming Environments and Languages
;
Simulation
Abstract:
This work presents an approach to agent-based simulation development using formal modelling, i.e. stream
X-Machines, that combines the power of executable specifications and test case generation. In that respect, a
domain specific language is presented for effortlessly encoding agent behaviour as a stream X-Machine in a
well known simulation platform. The main benefits in using the specific formal approach in such a practical
setting, apart from the fact that it offers a clear, intuitive way for specifying agent behaviour, is the existence
of tools for test case generation, that allow to systematically generate “agent simulation test scenarios”, i.e.
sequences of agent inputs that can be used for validation.