Biologically Inspired Agents: A Framework for Formal Modelling and Simulation of Agents with Elementary Spatial Attributes

Applications of biological or biologically inspired multi-agent systems often assume a certain level of reliability and robustness, which is not always easy to be achieved. Formal modelling and verification of these systems may present many interesting challenges. For instance, formal verification may be cumbersome or even impossible to be applied on models with increased complexity. On the other hand, the behaviour of bio multi-agent systems consists of communities evolving in space and time (such as social insects, tissues, colonies of bacteria, etc.) which are characterised with a highly dynamic structure. Formal modelling of such systems cannot be carried out in a neat and effective way. This work presents many interesting problems in the area of modelling and verification of bio multi-agent systems. Targeting a rather broad scope, the path for devising a global solution to tackle all of the problems, can be considered as secularly optimistic. Instead, we discuss a number of improvements in the development process, including enhancements on several modelling formalisms, alternative ways to formal verification, as well as a research framework which changes the standard modelling and verification approach of bio multi-agent systems.