¹Research Institute for Advanced Computer Science at NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA 94035; the Decision Sciences and Engineering Systems Department, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York 12180.
²Electrical, Computer, and Systems Engineering Department, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York 12180
³Krehbiel Professor of Emerging Technologies, Thayer School of Engineering, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire 03755

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Abstract—The development of theoretical-based methods for the assessment of multi-agent systems properties is of critical importance. This work investigates methodologies for modeling, analysis and design of multi-agent systems. Multi-agent systems are regarded as discrete-event dynamic systems and Petri nets are used as a modeling tool to assess the structural properties of the multi-agent system. Our methodology consists of defining a simple multi-agent system based on the abstract architecture for intelligent agents. The abstract architecture is modeled using Petri nets and structural analysis of the net provides an assessment of the interaction properties of the multi-agent system. Deadlock avoidance in the multi-agent system is considered and it is evaluated using liveness and boundedness properties of the Petri net model.

Index Terms—Petri nets, multi-agent systems, deadlock.

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Cite: Jose R. Celaya, Alan A. Desrochers, Robert J. Graves, "Modeling and Analysis of Multi-agent Systems using Petri Nets," Journal of Computers vol. 4, no. 10, pp. 981-996, 2009.