Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
ACT properly emulated the correct interaction between surrogate agents
and their respective spacecraft. This “correctness” was determined by com-
parison between what the surrogate did vs. what a human controller on the
ground would have done, in conjunction with what the controllers associated
with the other surrogates would have done, to achieve a global objective. This
analysis was undertaken more at the heuristic level than at a formal level.
The design of the surrogates was realized in a modular fashion in order to
support the concept of incremental placement of the functional capabilities
of the surrogate agent in the respective spacecraft, until the spacecraft itself
was truly agent-based and “autonomous.” This particular aspect of the ACT
project was heuristically realized, but not rigorously (formally) tested out.
The use of formal methods has been identified as a means of dealing with
this complex problem. Formal approaches were previously used in the specifi-
cation and verification of the LOGOS system [
56
,
118
,
119
,
124
]. A formal spec-
ification in Communicating Sequential Processes (CSP) highlighted a number
of errors and omissions in the system. These, and other, errors were also found
by an automated tool [
57
-
59
,
111
,
112
], which implemented an approach to
requirements-based-programming [
52
]. For more information on formal veri-
fication of agent-based systems, see [
123
].
