Model checking

Abstract: Our growing dependence on increasingly complex computer and software systems necessitates the development of formalisms, techniques, and tools for assessing functional properties of these systems. One such technique that has emerged in the last twenty years is model checking, which systematically (and automatically) checks whether a model of a given system satisfies a desired property such as deadlock freedom, invariants, and request-response properties. This automated technique for verification and debugging has developed into a mature and widely used approach with many applications. Principles of Model Checking offers a comprehensive introduction to model checking that is not only a text suitable for classroom use but also a valuable reference for researchers and practitioners in the field. The book begins with the basic principles for modeling concurrent and communicating systems, introduces different classes of properties (including safety and liveness), presents the notion of fairness, and provides automata-based algorithms for these properties. It introduces the temporal logics LTL and CTL, compares them, and covers algorithms for verifying these logics, discussing real-time systems as well as systems subject to random phenomena. Separate chapters treat such efficiency-improving techniques as abstraction and symbolic manipulation. The book includes an extensive set of examples (most of which run through several chapters) and a complete set of basic results accompanied by detailed proofs. Each chapter concludes with a summary, bibliographic notes, and an extensive list of exercises of both practical and theoretical nature.

Abstract: We give an efficient procedure for verifying that a finite-state concurrent system meets a specification expressed in a (propositional, branching-time) temporal logic. Our algorithm has complexity linear in both the size of the specification and the size of the global state graph for the concurrent system. We also show how this approach can be adapted to handle fairness. We argue that our technique can provide a practical alternative to manual proof construction or use of a mechanical theorem prover for verifying many finite-state concurrent systems. Experimental results show that state machines with several hundred states can be checked in a matter of seconds.

Abstract: Symbolic model checking is a powerful formal specification and verification method that has been applied successfully in several industrial designs. Using symbolic model checking techniques it is possible to verify industrial-size finite state systems. State spaces with up to 1030 states can be exhaustively searched in minutes. Models with more than 10120 states have been verified using special techniques.

Abstract: A general method that represents the state space symbolically instead of explicitly is described. The generality of the method comes from using a dialect of the mu-calculus as the primary specification language. A model-checking algorithm for mu-calculus formulas which uses R.E. Bryant's (1986) binary decision diagrams to represent relations and formulas symbolically is described. It is then shown how the novel mu-calculus model checking algorithm can be used to derive efficient decision procedures for CTL model checking, satisfiability of linear-time temporal logic formulas, strong and weak observational equivalence of finite transition systems, and language containment of finite omega -automata. This eliminates the need to describe complicated graph-traversal or nested fixed-point computations for each decision procedure. The authors illustrate the practicality of their approach to symbolic model checking by discussing how it can be used to verify a simple synchronous pipeline. >