Petri net and rewriting logic based formal analysis of multi-agent based safety-critical systems

Abstract

The formal design and development of multi-agent systems has attracted a considerable attention over the past decades because of their extensive use in safety-critical applications. This paper presents an efficient, hybrid and scalable formal development approach for safety-critical systems based on the multi-agent paradigm. In fact, we aim in this paper to benefit from the advantages of existing tools and techniques for each development stage and then integrate them in one unified approach. In particular approach, we advocate using Petri nets and rewriting logic to facilitate the formalization of multi-agent based systems, as well as we have integrated both the model checking and property-based testing techniques in the verification and testing stages. For illustrating the utilization and effectiveness of the proposed approach, we use it to analyze a simple automated distributing machine.