Abstract
Team formation in an environment where some relevant parameters are not
known in advance is a challenging problem. Communicating automata and
distributed algorithms have been used to describe protocols for team
formation. A high-level specification provides a mathematical
description of a protocol or a program. TLA + is a
formal specification language designed to provide high-level
specifications of concurrent and distributed systems. The associated
model checker known as TLC is capable of model checking the TLA
+ specifications. Recently formal specification of a
team formation protocol is given using TLA + when
there is a single initiator (an agent or a robot), that initiates the
team formation. Using TLA +, we examine the formal
specification for the multiple initiator situation and demonstrate that
a composition technique can yield a single monolithic specification for
the multiple initiator situation from the single initiator situation
specification. We have used models of varying sizes, and the TLC model
checker has confirmed that the protocol’s specifications meet certain
desired characteristics in each case.