Model Checking AORTA: Verification of Organization-Aware Agents

Abstract: As agent systems grow larger and more complex, there is an increasing need to formally verify them. Furthermore, it is often suggested that complex systems can be regulated using organizational models, imposing constraints on the agents in the systems. Agents that can understand the organizational model and constraints in a system is said to be organization-aware. This paper is concerned with verification of organization-aware agents. We show how agents using AORTA, a framework for making agents organization-aware, can be formally verified using an extended version of the Agent Java PathFinder (AJPF), a model checking system designed specifically for agent programming languages. We integrate AORTA with the Agent Infrastructure Layer (AIL), which is an intermediate layer on top of which APLs can be implemented, and use our extension of AJPF to verify a system of agents aiming to write a paper together by using an organization for coordination.