Using formal methods to model the dynamic behavior of agent-based systems

Summary form only given. Agent-based systems have received considerable attention in both academia and industry. An agent is a component of software and/or hardware, which is capable of acting in order to accomplish tasks on behalf of its user. Modeling the dynamic behavior of agents is a challenging research area. Petri-net models have emerged as a very promising formal performance modeling tool for systems that exhibit concurrency, synchronization, and randomness. We introduce a modeling process to describe the dynamic behavior of agents. We investigate using Petri-nets to analyze coherency and coordination of agent conversations.