A Logic-Based Framework for Reactive Systems

We sketch a logic-based framework in which computation consists of performing actions to generate a sequence of states, with the purpose of making a set of reactive rules in the logical form antecedents  consequents all true. The antecedents of the rules are conjunctions of past or present conditions and events, and the consequents of the rules are disjunctions of conjunctions of future conditions and actions. The antecedents can be viewed as complex/composite events, and the consequents as complex/composite/macro actions or processes. States are represented by sets of atomic sentences, and can be viewed as global variables, relational databases, Herbrand models, or mental representations of the real world. Events, including actions, transform one state into another. The operational semantics maintains only a single, destructively updated current state, whereas the model-theoretic semantics treats the entire sequence of states, events and actions as a single model. The model-theoretic semantics can be viewed as the problem of generating a model that makes all the reactive rules true.