Specifying and Verifying Distributed Intelligent Systems

This paper describes first steps towards the formal specification and verification of Distributed Artificial Intelligence (DAI) systems, through the use of temporal belief logics. The paper first describes Concurrent METATEM, a programming language for DAI, and then develops a logic that may be used to reason about Concurrent METATEM systems. The utility of this logic for specifying and verifying Concurrent METATEM systems is demonstrated through a number of examples. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of the wider implications of the work, and in particular on the use of similar logics for reasoning about DAI systems in general.