Formalizing Compatibility and Substitutability of Rolebased Interactions Components in Multi-agent Systems

摘要

This paper focus on compatibility and Substitutability of roles in MAS. We propose a formal specification of role-based interactions components together with their composition. We investigate compatibility of roles, and propose two compatibility relations, characterised to their degree of change by property (safety and liveness) preservation. Our approach is enhanced with the definition of behavioural subtyping relations, related to the principle of Substitutability. We show the existing link between compatibility and Substitutability concepts, and namely their combination, which seems to be necessary when we deal with incremental design of role-based complex interactions. The suitability of our approach is shown by its application to an interaction protocol example.