Skip to main content

A Framework for Verifying Autonomous Robotic Agents Against Environment Assumptions

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
Advances in Practical Applications of Agents, Multi-Agent Systems, and Trustworthiness. The PAAMS Collection (PAAMS 2020)

Abstract

Guaranteeing safety is crucial for autonomous robotic agents. Formal methods such as model checking show great potential to provide guarantees on agent and multi-agent systems. However, as robotic agents often work in open, dynamic and unstructured environments, achieving high-fidelity environment models is non-trivial. Most verification approaches for agents focus on checking the internal reasoning logic without considering operating environments or focus on a specific type of environments such as grid-based or graph-based environments. In this paper we propose a framework to model and verify the decision making of autonomous robotic agents against assumptions on environments. The framework focuses on making a clear separation between agent modeling and environment modeling, as well as providing formalism to specify agent’s decision making and assumptions on environments. As the first demonstration of this ongoing research, we provide an example of using the framework to verify an autonomous UAV agent performing pylon inspection.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    https://www.imec-int.com/en/what-we-offer/research-portfolio/safedroneware.

  2. 2.

    https://github.com/hoangtungdinh/paams20-supplemental-material.

References

  1. Aminof, B., Murano, A., Rubin, S., Zuleger, F.: Automatic verification of multi-agent systems in parameterised grid-environments. In: Proceedings of the 2016 International Conference on Autonomous Agents & Multiagent Systems. AAMAS 2016, pp. 1190–1199. International Foundation for Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, Richland (2016)

    Google Scholar 

  2. Bozzano, M., et al.: nuXmv 1.1. 1 User Manual (2016)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Coudert, O., Sasao, T.: Two-level logic minimization. In: Hassoun, S., Sasao, T. (eds.) Logic Synthesis and Verification, pp. 1–27. Springer, Boston (2002). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-0817-5_1

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  4. Dennis, L.A., Fisher, M., Lincoln, N.K., Lisitsa, A., Veres, S.M.: Practical verification of decision-making in agent-based autonomous systems. Autom. Softw. Eng. 23(3), 305–359 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10515-014-0168-9

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Dixon, C., Webster, M., Saunders, J., Fisher, M., Dautenhahn, K.: “The fridge door is open”–temporal verification of a robotic assistant’s behaviours. In: Mistry, M., Leonardis, A., Witkowski, M., Melhuish, C. (eds.) TAROS 2014. LNCS (LNAI), vol. 8717, pp. 97–108. Springer, Cham (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-10401-0_9

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  6. Fu, J., Ng, V., Bastani, F., Yen, I.L.: Simple and fast strong cyclic planning for fully-observable nondeterministic planning problems. In: Twenty-Second International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (2011)

    Google Scholar 

  7. Gainer, P., et al.: CRutoN: automatic verification of a robotic assistant’s behaviours. In: Petrucci, L., Seceleanu, C., Cavalcanti, A. (eds.) FMICS/AVoCS -2017. LNCS, vol. 10471, pp. 119–133. Springer, Cham (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67113-0_8

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  8. Ingrand, F., Ghallab, M.: Deliberation for autonomous robots: a survey. Artif. Intell. 247, 10–44 (2017)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  9. Kouvaros, P., Lomuscio, A., Pirovano, E., Punchihewa, H.: Formal verification of open multi-agent systems. In: Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and MultiAgent Systems. AAMAS 2019, pp. 179–187. International Foundation for Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, Richland (2019)

    Google Scholar 

  10. Lomuscio, A., Pirovano, E.: A counter abstraction technique for the verification of probabilistic swarm systems. In: Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and MultiAgent Systems. AAMAS 2019, pp. 161–169. International Foundation for Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, Richland (2019)

    Google Scholar 

  11. Luckcuck, M., Farrell, M., Dennis, L.A., Dixon, C., Fisher, M.: Formal specification and verification of autonomous robotic systems: a survey. ACM Comput. Surv. 52, 100:1–100:41 (2019)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Morse, J., Araiza-Illan, D., Lawry, J., Richards, A., Eder, K.: Formal specification and analysis of autonomous systems under partial compliance. arXiv:1603.01082 [cs], March 2016

  13. Rubin, S.: Parameterised verification of autonomous mobile-agents in static but unknown environments. In: Proceedings of the 2015 International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems. AAMAS 2015, pp. 199–208. International Foundation for Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, Richland (2015)

    Google Scholar 

  14. Shalev-Shwartz, S., Shammah, S., Shashua, A.: Safe, multi-agent, reinforcement learning for autonomous driving. arXiv:1610.03295 [cs, stat], October 2016

  15. Spaan, M.T.J., Veiga, T.S., Lima, P.U.: Decision-theoretic planning under uncertainty with information rewards for active cooperative perception. Auton. Agents Multi-Agent Syst. 29(6), 1157–1185 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10458-014-9279-8

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Webster, M., et al.: Toward reliable autonomous robotic assistants through formal verification: a case study. IEEE Trans. Hum.-Mach. Syst. 46, 186–196 (2016)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Webster, M., et al.: Formal verification of an autonomous personal robotic assistant. In: Proceedings of the AAAI FVHMS, pp. 74–79 (2014)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgment

This research is partially funded by the Research Fund KU Leuven. We thank the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Hoang Tung Dinh .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2020 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this paper

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this paper

Dinh, H.T., Holvoet, T. (2020). A Framework for Verifying Autonomous Robotic Agents Against Environment Assumptions. In: Demazeau, Y., Holvoet, T., Corchado, J., Costantini, S. (eds) Advances in Practical Applications of Agents, Multi-Agent Systems, and Trustworthiness. The PAAMS Collection. PAAMS 2020. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 12092. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49778-1_23

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49778-1_23

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-49777-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-49778-1

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics