Anti-chain based algorithms for timed/probabilistic refinement checking

• Published in: Science China. Information sciences Vol. 61; no. 5; p. 052105
• Main Authors: Wang, Ting, Chen, Tieming, Liu, Yang, Wang, Ye
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Beijing Science China Press 01.05.2018; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Algorithms; Computer Science; Information Systems and Communication Service; Research Paper; Specifications; Verification; refinement; model checking; timed automata; anti-chain; markov decision process
• ISSN: 1674-733X; 1869-1919
• DOI: 10.1007/s11432-017-9133-4

Refinement checking answers the question on whether an implementation model is a refinement of a specification model, which is of great value for system verification. Some refinement relationships, e.g., trace refinement and failures/divergence refinement, have been recognized for different verification purposes. In general, refinement checking algorithms often rely on subset construction, which incurs in the state space explosion problem. Recently the anti-chain based approach has been suggested for trace refinement checking, and the results show a significant improvement. In this paper, we investigate the problems of applying the anti-chain approach to timed refinement checking (a timed implementation vs. a timed or untimed specification) and probabilistic refinement checking (a probabilistic implementation vs. a non-probabilistic specification), and show that the state space can be reduced considerably by employing the anti-chain approach. All the algorithms have been integrated into the model checking tool PAT, and the experiments have been conducted to show the efficiency of the application of anti-chains.