Embedding statecharts into Teleo-Reactive programs to model interactions between agents

Abstract

Abstract Context The Teleo-Reactive (TR) approach offers many possibilities for goal-oriented modeling of reactive systems, but it also has drawbacks when the number of interactions among agents is high, leading to barely legible specifications and losing the original benefits of the approach. Objective This work combines the TR paradigm with statecharts and provides advantages for modeling reactive systems and removing the shortcomings detected. Method A basic example is adopted to reveal the problem that appears when agents are modeled only with the TR approach and have frequent interactions with others. This paper proposes an extension to the TR approach that integrates the modeling using statecharts. A transformation procedure from statecharts to TR programs makes it possible to continue using the infrastructure of existing execution platforms such as TeleoR. The approach has been validated for a particular domain by considering a more complex case study in which traditionally there have been no results on the application of the TR paradigm. A survey was carried out on students to verify the benefits of the approach. Results A method to consider statecharts when modeling TR programs. Conclusions Statecharts can facilitate the adoption of the TR approach.