Process Calculus of Epistemic Systems

Abstract

In the analysis and design of multi-agent systems, the representation and communication of knowledge is a critical challenge. The traditional methods of the past, such as dynamic epistemic logic, often lack a process algebraic perspective for modeling concurrent belief-driven interactions. This paper proposes the Calculus of Epistemic Systems (CES), a process calculus that formalizes agents’ communication behaviors within an epistemic environment and captures how epistemic interactions dynamically update agents’ belief bases. We establish key epistemic properties of CES and investigate strong bisimilarity, weak bisimilarity, and observational congruence, proving their substitutivity under all combinators. A persuasion scenario between a companion agent and an elderly user demonstrates the framework’s applicability. Additionally, we show how CES can embed process terms as modal operators in a dynamic epistemic logic. This may unify two major lines of research.