Integrated development environment for the multiple ambient calculus for modeling freight systems

Abstract

We propose an integrated development environment (IDE) for developing formulae written in the multiple ambient calculus (MAC). MAC is a kind of process algebra designed for modeling freight systems in which a lot of containers are transported by several vessels from one port to another port via several hub ports. We have been studying a handling management system that confirms the validity of container handling during shipping. The system checks whether containers are being correctly handled by comparing the movement of the containers, which is sensed by radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, with formal models (formulae) written in MAC. For accurate and automatic management, we need to develop MAC formulae that accurately express the nested structure of the entire freight system (ports, vessels, and containers) and the movement of those objects. The IDE presented in this paper (IDE4MAC) enables us to develop such formulae with ordinal editing functions and several debugging functions such as a selective execution function and backward tracing function that are useful for checking all non-deterministic actions of MAC processes. We developed IDE4MAC as plugins of Eclipse so that it can be easily installed and used.