LEADSTO: a Language and Environment for Analysis of Dynamics by SimulaTiOn

This paper presents the language and software environment LEADSTO that has been developed to model and simulate the dynamics of Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) in terms of both qualitative and quantitative concepts. The LEADSTO language is a declarative order-sorted temporal language, extended with quantitative means. Dynamics of MAS can be modelled by specifying the direct temporal dependencies between state properties in successive states. Based on the LEADSTO language, a software environment was developed that performs simulations of LEADSTO specifications, generates simulation traces for further analysis, and constructs visual representations of traces. The approach proved its value in a number of projects within different domains of MAS research. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2005