Proceedings of the 5" World Congress on Intelligent Control and Automation, June 15-19.2004. Hangzhou. P.R.

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Using Extended Fuzzy-Timing Petri Nets to Model Role-Based and Agent Oriented Collaborative Virtual Environment
Haihong Wul, Chunyan Yu' and Minghui Wu2 'State Key Lab. ofCAD&CG Zhejiang Universify.Hangzhoir, Zhejiang Province, China f 'Computer Department o Zhejiang Universiiy City College, Hungzhotr, Zhejiang Province, China hhwu@cad.zju.edu.cn
Absfracl Modeling collaborative virtual environment (CVE) is the basis of describing and solving related problems such as concurrency and consistency. In this paper, a new model adopting role theory for CVE is presented. This role-based model called RACVE defines CVE as a seven-tuple which contains all important components and describes static relations between basic rollaborative entities and collaborative events. Especially, two important concepts, Intelligenr Entity in Running Stare and Collaborative Federation, are proposed to take time factor into consideratian. Although the definition and static relation description are complete in RACVE model, it is still deficient in desrribing time-based dynamic state transition of system. The RACVE model represents only a traditions) 3D system; actually, CVE is a kind of 4D system with time as its fourth dimension. In order to represent time factor explicitly and describe dynamic state of system, a Fuzzy-Timing Petri Nets formal modeling technique is employed to revise RACVE model to satisfy 4D and real-time requirement of CVE. Furthermore, state transitions for Shared Object, Intelligent Entity in Running Slate, Collabora~ive Federation, and Collaborolive Autiviw are modeled efficiently, and reinforce RACVE greatly as well. Index Terms - collaborative virtual environment, FuzzyTiming Petri Nets, fuzzy-timing, formal modeling, role scheme
1 INTRODUCTION .

Collaborative Virtual Environment (CVE), which integrates CSCW (Computer Supported Collaborative Work) technology, VR (Virtual Reality) technology, AI technology, multimedia technology and network technology, is one of the important modalities of the next-generation computing Due to the recent rapid development of all techniques mentioned above, there are diverse applications and increasing use of CVEs, such as virtual shopping mall, education, etc. However, CVEs still have many problems to solve such as maintaining real-time consistency and concurrency. Some programming package and libraries are developed to help programming instead of formal modeling1'? Nevertheless, we insist that a formal model for CVEs is the basis of describing and solving all these problems. As we h o w , CVEs allow people geographically dispersed to interact with each other in real time, share information, manipulate objects, and work together to perform a complex roup task in remote virtual environments over networksi5. Hence, it is difficult to model CVEs because it

focuses on not only all virtual entities and interaction among virtual entities hut also state transition of virtual entities accompanying interaction and time.aging. Also, it is more complicated by adding network considerations, for concurrency and consistency are network-correlated. This paper consists of two phases: first, it proposes a generic role-based model called RACVE for CVEs by introducing role scheme; second, it proposes to apply a Fuzzy-Timing Petri Nets (FTNs) formal modeling technique to R.4CVE in order to add time factor and network considerations into it. The proposed generic RACVE model regards CVE as a 3D virtual environment and an spatial extension for traditional 2D CSCW system; it describes virtual entities and static relations between virtual entities perfectly; moreover, it takes time factor into consideration: especially, the two important concepts are both time-based defined: fntelligenf Enfity in Running Stare which represents hybrid avatar and virtual actor, and Collaboration Federation which is the minimum unit to process collaborative activities. However, integrating time factor into our proposed model is pretty superficial for the model don't describe state transition at all; thus, it still couldn't describe concurrency and consistency problems. Applying formal modeling techniques such as FTNs to revise OUT RACVE model, we hope to extend original 3D model to a sufficient 4D model which can describe dynamic state transition of CVEs and make it conductive to describe and solve consistency and concurrency problems. In this paper, we employ a kind of extended FTNs technique to model the effects that time factor acts on Intelligent E n t i p in Running Stare, Collaborative Federation, Shared Object and CollaborativeActivity. This paper is organized as follows: section 2 presents our role-based model M C V E which is a traditional 3D model. Section 3 expands traditional 3D model to a 4D model through introducing time factor and reviews briefly FTNs. Section 4 proposes generic FTN models for four key concepts expanded from our role-based model RACVE. Our conclusion is given in section 5.
11. TRADITIONAL 3D MODELRACVE FOR COLLABORATIVE VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENT

A CVE is composed of a number of entities which simulate those true objects in real life by representing 3-D objects in higher-level and encapsulating all attributes of

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objects such as position and actions. For any CVE, there are three essential entities: Hybrid Avatar, Virtual Actor and Shared Object. Shared Objects existing in a CVE constitute virtual objects that ffvbrid Av&r and Warul Actor can operate. Hvbrid Avatar embodies a participant in the virtual world. He interacts with the vittual world through controlling his avatars motion; meanwhile, he recognizes the other ones state position, and movement by their avatars. As we know, Hybrid Avatar is a special entity as it is alterable, active and locomotor. Different from Hybrid Avatar controlled by its participant, Virtual Actor accomplishes a specific task for collaborative activities Virtual Actor self-determinedly and intelligently. distinguishes itself from the common agent because it is visualized and has same movement as avatar. Hybrid Avatar and K m a l Actor, viewed as intelligent agents, are two essential components supporting collaborative activities in CVEs. In addition, we adopt the concept of role from role theory[. As we know, Participants Roles and Rights is one of generic requirements for collaborative activity in CVEs. That is to say, certain roles and associated with certain rights must be appointed for each participant to ensure efficiency and progress of the collaborative activities. Hence, all Hybrid Avatars and Virtual Actors are playing the roles according to their capabilities. A role, defined as a collection of duties and rights, refers to the expected behavior pattems an agent must perform Duties of roles are modeled as obligations which specify what activities an agent must or must not perform on a set of shared objects. Rights are modeled as permissions which specify what collaborative activities an agent is permitted (or forbidden) to perform on a set of target resources[8J. There are two general types: particular role and time-based role. Particular role is inherent in agents, for instance, consumer for a Hvbrid Avatar and sales for a Ernid Actor are both paeicular roles that are unchangeable during the whole life cycle of agents once these roles are assigned to. On the contrary, time-based role is random for agents. That is to say, agent plays different roles at different time. For instance, when a user logging in a CVE af time tlh his avatar plays member role; and if he sponsors a new collaborative session at time t,, his avatar plays leader role. Agents are selected to play the time-based roles according to some special policies. On the other hand, collaborative event describing the dynamic process of collaboration is another important concept. Shared Object Manipulation, Communication and Nuvigation are three basic collaborative events. Shared Object Manipulation, one of the most important interactions between users and the virtual world, includes geometric, edit and transfer operations as well[]. That is to say, users can select a certain shared virtual object to change its position and orientation, manipulate object attributes, and execute application-predefined embedded functions. Comnnmication, which is the foundation of all kinds of collaborative events and interactions, assures progresses of all collaborative activities even though it might he direct or

indirect and its effects might he explicit or implicit. Navigation, an important characteristic of CVEs, provides a simple and natural method for users to move through in an easy manner to reduce spatial loss and enhance users spatial awareness[. Definition 1 A generic role-based collaborative virtual environment model RACVE is a tuple CVE = <Avatars, Actors, SO, R, M. C, N> where Avatars represent all users in CVE where there exists one-to-one-mapping between Avatars and users; Actors is an aggregation of agents that automatically accomplish specific assignments for users in CVE; SO is an aggregation of shared objects in CVE; R represents a set of roles and corresponding Role Scheme to support all the collaborative activities in CVE; M represents Object Manipulation; C represents Communication; N represents Navigation. Avatars, Actors and SO constitute a collaborative entity layer of CVEs while Avatars and Actors are collaborative activity subjects. And M, C and N constitute basic collaborative events. Furthermore, Fig. I shows a generic architecture of our proposed role-based collaborative virtual environment model. As Fig..l shows, there are two important concepts introduced Intelligent Enti@ in Running State proposed to describe dynamic state of Intelligent Entities that contain both Hybrid Avatars and Virtual Actors, and Collaborative Federation defined as the minimum unit to process collaborative activities. Definition 2 An Intelligent Entity in Running State model is defined in BNF as follows:, <Intelligent Entig in Running State>::= INTELLIGENT ENTITY IN RUNNING STATE <ID> <K~riational Attributes> <Rules> <Target_Role-Rule Associated List> END-INTELLIGENT ENTITY IN R W I N G STATE <Target-Role-Rule Associated List >::= <Target>< RoleList(Goa1, t)>< RnleList(Goal, t ) > <Target-Role-Rule Associated List? := <Target>< RoleList(Goa1.. t)>< RuleList(Goa1, t)> The attributes of an Intelligent Entity in Running State have the following meaning: ID is the identifier of Hybrid Avutar or Virtual Actor to associate lntelligenf Entily in Running State with avatars or actors unique correlative static definition. Variational Attributes involve all changeable attributes that are time-based of avatar or actor. Rules is self-determined reaction rule base and its record is a set of clauses as follows: IF Conditional Statenient THEN Executing Triggered Collaborative Event. Goal indicates a certain Collaborative Goal that the Intelligent Entit). is engaged in at time t. Taxet is current .Target Status determined by Goal. RoleList(Coa1, t) is a set of Roles and for any r ERoleList(Goul,t), r depends on Goal and time t. RuleList(Goa1, i) is a set of collaborative restriction rules educed from Goal and collaborative resource library including Collaborative Rules Base. Collaborative Federation is a dynamic combination of Intelligent Entifies in Running State. Definition 3 Collaborative Federation model is defined in BNF as follows:
,

External

4 Virtual

Environment

Fig. I A gencric architecture for RACVE essential parts of CVEs rather than describe dynamic states of these parts according to time aging; also, the architecture just describes static relations instead of representing status migration. On the contraly, one of the most important characteristics of CVEs is real-time"01 and a collaborative activity is a sequence of collaborative events with a certain Collaborative Federation that involves a set of lntelligent Entifies in Running State. Furthermore, all problems of CVEs, such as concurrency and consistency, are time-correlated. Undoubtedly, time factor plays a very important role in CVEs; in fact, CVE should he viewed as a 4D CSCW system rather than a 3 0 virtual world and the fourth dimension is time. Afler CVE is extended to a 4D CSCW system, it is necessary that time factor should he represented in CVE model explicitly. That is to say, not only static relations should be described, but also all dynamic state transition should be represented. Unfortunately, it is not satisfying although both lnfelligenf E t t in Running Stare and niy Collaborative Federution take time factor into consideration in our proposed RACVE model. Fuzzy-Timing Petri Nets (FTNs), having rigorous analysis capability. have been shown useful for assuring the reliability and correctness of collaborative systems and competent for representing the dynamic behavior of collaborative systems as precedence, interleaving, concurrence and conflict constraints between states and events. They allow handling explicit timing considerations by means of the fuzzy time functions. Such formalism is convenient for modeling non-determinism and parallel 111. TIME FACTOR AND FUZZY-TIMING PETRI NETS computation, which are the two essential features of collaborative systems. Both RACVE model and architecture presented in As an extension of Petri nets, Muratal"' proposed section 2 lays stress on describing the relations between Fuzzy-Timing high-level Petri Nets (FTHNs) to model time those basic collaborative entities and basic collaborative explicitly in terms of fuzzy set theory. In FTHNs, four fuzzy events. However, all the definition and relations described are static. That is to say, the seven-tuple just contains all set theoretic functions of time are defined: fuzzy timestamp, 3950

<Collaborut~ve Fcderution> ::= "COLLABORATIVE FEDERATION <Fcdet.ution ID> <Coal> <Scene> <Attributes> <Sponsor> <Leader> <Meniber_Role Associutrd List> <Colluborutive Rule List> "END-COLLABORATIVE FEDERATION" <Member-Role Associated List>::=<Member; RoleList(t)> {","<Mentbec RoleList(p) The above attributes have the following meaning: Federofion /D: a unique identifier distinguishing the Collaborative Federation from others. Goal is a Colluhorurive Goal that this Collabot-utive Federalion is engaged in. Scene is a unique scene where collaborative activity of this federation is taking place. Attributes are a set of basic attributes of the federation at time f including created time, current member number, and so on. Sponsor indicates that which one of the Intelligent Entities is sponsor of Colluborarive Activiq and assigns the Role of Collabo,otive Sponsor to it. Leader indicates that which one of the Intelligent Entities is controller of Colluborafive Activicv at time f and assigns the Role of Collaborative Leader to it. Member-Role Associuted List is defined as an aggregation of nested 2-tuple <Member; RoleLisr(f)> at time I. For each nested 2-tuple, Member is an Intelligent Entiry as a member of the federation while RoleLst(f) is a set of Roles. Collaborative Rule List is a set of Collaborative Rirles that are used by the federation in Colluborufiveacfiviry at time r.

fuzzy enabling time, fuzzy occurrence time and fuzzy delay. For simplicity, trapezoidal possibility distributions specified by the 4-tuple (IT,, 2 ,IT, ,n4) are used to represent fuzzy x time functions. Z ~ O U I ~ ~ FTN by integrating FTN extended with timed Petri net. In Extended Fuzzy-Timing Petri Nets (EFTNs), each transition is associated with a firing intemal p ( a , p ) ,where the default interval is 1[0,0] (a transition definitely fires as sqon as it is enabled). If a transition T is enabled at time initant T , T may not fire before time instant r + a ,and must fire before or at time instant r + p . p is the possibility of transitions in structural conflict. By attaching firing intervals with possibilities, these models succeed in giving a firing possibility and priority among transitions in conflict. The formal definition of EFTNs and the method to compute and update fuzzy time functions for transitions are given in [12]. IV. REVISNG RACVE WITH EFTNs As analyzed above, it is the fatal flaw of our role-based and agent oriented model that time factor integration is too superficial. Undoubtedly, the task of top priority of revising our RA CVE model is to represent time factor and state transition explicitly, which is feasible by FTNs. Our role-based model has been described the static relations between those basic collaborative entities and basic collaborative events. That is to say, definition and description for static parts of CVEs is complete in our role-based model. Hence, our revision work carried out with EFTNs aims at reinforcing our original model through describing state transition of collaborative entities and collaborative federation based on the original 3D model rather than overthrow it. In figure 2 to 6 , we model state transition of Shared Object, Intelligent in Running State, Collaborative Federation and Collaborative Activity separately. In order to revise our role-based collaborative virtual environment more accurately, we introduce an special arc named dump arc into our proposed models, which is subset of the set of arc (P,T). The main feature of dump arc is that its weight is alterable and depends on the number of tokens in its input place P. Once the output transition T is fired at time instant T , all current tokens in the input place P will be taken off through the arc. To avoid frequent updating server database and federation copy, we employ dump arc to the updating actions, which not only solves the problem caused by tokens heap but also describes the periodical actions concisely. In the figures, we denote such arcs by the character n attached to the weights. In the revised models, bur explicit timing considerations are embodied as follows. We use the time interval [ E , , E , ] or [ E ~E,> ] to represent the period during which local copy waits for reload from server database or federation copy. To describe the duration of a certain activity more explicitly, we combine the transition with ( r ), ,#, appropriate fuzzy delay D,,,,.,, such as D E ,, D , ,

in Fig.2. Furthermore, we may assign the possibility to transitions in structural conflict, which is desirable in future works.

V. CONCLUSION REMARKS
In order to model CVE, we first have presented a new role-based model RACVE in this model. And the corresponding architecture has been given. The two important concepts in RACVE are Intelligent Entihi in Running State and Collaborative Federation. RACVE and its architecture define and describe the static relations between basic collaborative entities and basic collaborative events completely. However, as the fourth dimension of CVE, time factor do not represented explicitly in RACVE at all. Introduced FTNs, we have modeled state transition of Shared Object, Intelligent in Running State, Collaborative Federation and collaborative activity separately. In particular, we have introduced a new arc named dump arc in the above models to describe state transition much more accurately.

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