A Support Method of Model Description Error Detection on a Programming Environment for Multi Agent Simulation

Recently, there are various proposals on tool for multi-agent simulation. However, in such simulation tools, analysts who do not have programming skill spend a lot of time to develop programs because notation of simulation models is not defined sufficiently and programming language is varied on tools. To solve this problem, a programming environment that defines the notation of simulation model has poposed. In this environment, analysts can design simulation with a graph representation and get the program code without writing programs. However, it is difficult to find errors that cause unintended behavior in simulation. Therefore, we propose a support method as a model debugger which helps users to find errors. The debugger generates candidates of errors, using a user's report of unintended behavior based on “typical report patterns”. Candidates of errors are extracted from “tree structure of error-inducing factors” that consists of source patterns of errors. In this paper, we executed experiments that compare time needed for examinees to find errors. Experimental results show the time to find errors by utilizing our model debugger is shortened.