Discrete event simulation of reactive knowledge based systems
Abstract
We propose an approach for specifying, validating and verifying the behavior of reactive Knowledge Based Systems that consists in: 1) using an extension of the CommonKADS specification language to specify the behavior of this kind of system as in an expertise model; 2) automatically operationalizing (and verifying) this behavioral part of the expertise model into a model expressed with the DEVS formalism; 3) validating the system behavior by the simulation of the obtained operational model. In this way, the system behavior is specified in the expert terminology and it is validated by simulation, before even designing and implementing the system. We illustrate our approach with the Jaspar bank system of service allocation with waiting queues managing. First, we define a template for dynamic assignment, like those of the CommonKADS library, to be used in the definition of any service providing system. Then, we describe the behavior of the Jaspar bank system by reusing this template and we show how translating the obtained Jaspar bank model into the DEVS formalism makes its validation by simulation feasible.