Temporal Development Methods for Agent-Based Systems

In this paper we overview one specific approach to the formal development of multi-agent systems. This approach is based on the use of temporal logics to represent both the behaviour of individual agents, and the macro-level behaviour of multi-agent systems. We describe how formal specification, verification and refinement can all be developed using this temporal basis, and how implementation can be achieved by directly executing these formal representations. We also show how the basic framework can be extended in various ways to handle the representation and implementation of agents capable of more complex deliberation and reasoning.