Property-Dependent Reductions for the Modal Mu-Calculus

Radu Mateescu and Anton Wijs

Proceedings of the 18th International SPIN Workshop on Model Checking of Software SPIN'2011 (Cliff Lodge, Snowbird, Utah, USA), July 14-15, 2011

Full version available as INRIA Research Report RR-7690.

Abstract:

When analyzing the behavior of finite-state concurrent systems by model checking, one way of fighting state explosion is to reduce the model as much as possible whilst preserving the properties under verification. We consider the framework of action-based systems, whose behaviors can be represented by labeled transition systems (LTSs), and whose temporal properties of interest can be formulated in modal μ-calculus (Lμ). First, we determine, for any Lμ formula, the maximal set of actions that can be hidden in the LTS without changing the interpretation of the formula. Then, we define dsbrLμ, a fragment of Lμ which is compatible with divergence-sensitive branching bisimulation. This enables us to apply the maximal hiding and to reduce the LTS on-the-fly using divergence-sensitive τ-confluence during the verification of any dsbrLμ formula. The experiments that we performed on various examples of communication protocols and distributed systems show that this reduction approach can significantly improve the performance of on-the-fly verification.

30 pages

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Slides of A. Wijs' lecture at SPIN'2011

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