Using Colored Petri Nets for Conversation Modeling

Conversations are a useful means of structuring communicative interactions among agents. The value of a conversation-based approach is largely determined by the conversational model it uses. Finite State Machines, used heavily to date for this purpose, are not su cient for complex agent interactions requiring a notion of concurrency. We propose the use of Colored Petri Nets as a model underlying a language for conversation speci cation. This carries the relative simplicity and graphical representation of the former approach, along with greater expressive power and support for concurrency. The construction of such a language, Protolingua, is currently being investigated within the framework of the Jackal agent development environment. In this paper, we explore the use of Colored Petri Nets in modeling agent communicative interaction.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2000
• Where: AGENTCL
• Authors: R. Scott Cost, Ye Chen, Timothy W. Finin, Yannis Labrou, Yun Peng
• Keywords: AGENTCL 2000, Communicative Interaction, Complex Agent Interactions, Intelligent Agents, Petri Nets