Formal Approaches to Agent-Based Systems: Second International Workshop, FAABS 2002, Greenbelt, MD, USA, October 29-31, 2002, Revised Papers: 2699 (Lecture Notes in Computer Science) - Softcover

Reseña del editor

The idea of a FAABS workshop was first conceived in 1998 at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, while the Agent Technology Development Group in the Advanced Architectures and Automation Branch (Code 588) was developing a prototype agent community to automate satellite ground operations. While developing this system, several race conditions arose within and between agents. Due to the complexity of the agents and the communications between them, it was decided that a formal approach was needed to specify the agents and the communications between them, so that the system could be checked for additional errors. A formal model of the inter-agent communications was developed, with the expectation that this would enable us to find more errors. Success in this convinced us of the importance of using formal methods to model agent-based systems. To share our own experiences and to learn how others were approaching these issues, we decided to hold a workshop on formal methods and agent-based systems. The response was overwhelming. The result was the first FAABS workshop, which was held at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Posters, paper presentations, panels, and an invited talk by J Moore stimulated much discussion and subsequent collaboration.

Reseña del editor

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Formal Approaches to Agent-Based Systems, FAABS 2002, held in Greenbelt, MD, in October 2002.

The 18 revised full papers and 5 poster papers presented together with 9 panel statements and summaries were carefully selected for presentation during two rounds of reviewing and improvement. Among the topics addressed are formal models for agent communication, communication protocols, logic-based agents, statechart frameworks, formal specification of agent interaction, space shuttle applications, automated satellite ground operations, formal verification, agent control, multi-agent coordination, agent languages, mobile agent testing, battlefield agents, XML, autonomous agents, etc.