Simulation for testing software agents - an exploration based on James

Author

Himmelspach, Jan ; Röhl, Mathias ; Uhrmache, Adelinde M.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Comput. Sci., Rostock Univ., Germany

Volume

1

fYear

2003

fDate

7-10 Dec. 2003

Firstpage

799

Abstract

Agents are software systems aimed at working in dynamic environments. Simulation systems can be used to provide virtual environments for testing agents. The software to be tested, the objective of the simulation study, and the stage of the agent software development influences both: the environmental models used for testing and the mechanisms that synchronize the execution of agents and simulation. A clear distinction between model and simulation layer, and a modular design of the simulation system support the required flexibility. Based on the simulation system James (a Java based agent modeling environment for simulation) and two agent applications we will explore, how interfaces between virtual environments and software agents can be explicitly specified at the modeling level and suitable mechanisms for synchronization might be chosen on demand.

Keywords

Java; digital simulation; program testing; programming environments; software agents; synchronisation; virtual reality; James; Java based agent modeling environment for simulation; agent applications; agent software development; dynamic environments; environmental models; execution synchronization; interface specification; modeling level; modular design; simulation study; simulation system support; software agent testing; software systems; virtual environments; Computational modeling; Costs; Object oriented modeling; Programming; Software agents; Software safety; Software systems; Software testing; System testing; Virtual environment;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Simulation Conference, 2003. Proceedings of the 2003 Winter

Print_ISBN

0-7803-8131-9

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/WSC.2003.1261498

Filename

1261498