23 research outputs found
Degrees of Lookahead in Regular Infinite Games
We study variants of regular infinite games where the strict alternation of
moves between the two players is subject to modifications. The second player
may postpone a move for a finite number of steps, or, in other words, exploit
in his strategy some lookahead on the moves of the opponent. This captures
situations in distributed systems, e.g. when buffers are present in
communication or when signal transmission between components is deferred. We
distinguish strategies with different degrees of lookahead, among them being
the continuous and the bounded lookahead strategies. In the first case the
lookahead is of finite possibly unbounded size, whereas in the second case it
is of bounded size. We show that for regular infinite games the solvability by
continuous strategies is decidable, and that a continuous strategy can always
be reduced to one of bounded lookahead. Moreover, this lookahead is at most
doubly exponential in the size of a given parity automaton recognizing the
winning condition. We also show that the result fails for non-regular
gamesxwhere the winning condition is given by a context-free omega-language.Comment: LMCS submissio
Buffered Simulation Games for B\"uchi Automata
Simulation relations are an important tool in automata theory because they
provide efficiently computable approximations to language inclusion. In recent
years, extensions of ordinary simulations have been studied, for instance
multi-pebble and multi-letter simulations which yield better approximations and
are still polynomial-time computable.
In this paper we study the limitations of approximating language inclusion in
this way: we introduce a natural extension of multi-letter simulations called
buffered simulations. They are based on a simulation game in which the two
players share a FIFO buffer of unbounded size. We consider two variants of
these buffered games called continuous and look-ahead simulation which differ
in how elements can be removed from the FIFO buffer. We show that look-ahead
simulation, the simpler one, is already PSPACE-hard, i.e. computationally as
hard as language inclusion itself. Continuous simulation is even EXPTIME-hard.
We also provide matching upper bounds for solving these games with infinite
state spaces.Comment: In Proceedings AFL 2014, arXiv:1405.527
Synthesis of Deterministic Top-down Tree Transducers from Automatic Tree Relations
We consider the synthesis of deterministic tree transducers from automaton
definable specifications, given as binary relations, over finite trees. We
consider the case of specifications that are deterministic top-down tree
automatic, meaning the specification is recognizable by a deterministic
top-down tree automaton that reads the two given trees synchronously in
parallel. In this setting we study tree transducers that are allowed to have
either bounded delay or arbitrary delay. Delay is caused whenever the
transducer reads a symbol from the input tree but does not produce output. We
provide decision procedures for both bounded and arbitrary delay that yield
deterministic top-down tree transducers which realize the specification for
valid input trees. Similar to the case of relations over words, we use
two-player games to obtain our results.Comment: In Proceedings GandALF 2014, arXiv:1408.556
Prompt Delay
Delay games are two-player games of infinite duration in which one player may
delay her moves to obtain a lookahead on her opponent's moves. Recently, such
games with quantitative winning conditions in weak MSO with the unbounding
quantifier were studied, but their properties turned out to be unsatisfactory.
In particular, unbounded lookahead is in general necessary. Here, we study
delay games with winning conditions given by Prompt-LTL, Linear Temporal Logic
equipped with a parameterized eventually operator whose scope is bounded. Our
main result shows that solving Prompt-LTL delay games is complete for
triply-exponential time. Furthermore, we give tight triply-exponential bounds
on the necessary lookahead and on the scope of the parameterized eventually
operator. Thus, we identify Prompt-LTL as the first known class of well-behaved
quantitative winning conditions for delay games. Finally, we show that applying
our techniques to delay games with \omega-regular winning conditions answers
open questions in the cases where the winning conditions are given by
non-deterministic, universal, or alternating automata
Delay Games with WMSO+U Winning Conditions
Delay games are two-player games of infinite duration in which one player may
delay her moves to obtain a lookahead on her opponent's moves. We consider
delay games with winning conditions expressed in weak monadic second order
logic with the unbounding quantifier, which is able to express (un)boundedness
properties. We show that it is decidable whether the delaying player has a
winning strategy using bounded lookahead and give a doubly-exponential upper
bound on the necessary lookahead. In contrast, we show that bounded lookahead
is not always sufficient to win such a game.Comment: A short version appears in the proceedings of CSR 2015. The
definition of the equivalence relation introduced in Section 3 is updated:
the previous one was inadequate, which invalidates the proof of Lemma 2. The
correction presented here suffices to prove Lemma 2 and does not affect our
main theorem. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1412.370
How Much Lookahead is Needed to Win Infinite Games?
Delay games are two-player games of infinite duration in which one player may
delay her moves to obtain a lookahead on her opponent's moves. For
-regular winning conditions it is known that such games can be solved
in doubly-exponential time and that doubly-exponential lookahead is sufficient.
We improve upon both results by giving an exponential time algorithm and an
exponential upper bound on the necessary lookahead. This is complemented by
showing EXPTIME-hardness of the solution problem and tight exponential lower
bounds on the lookahead. Both lower bounds already hold for safety conditions.
Furthermore, solving delay games with reachability conditions is shown to be
PSPACE-complete.
This is a corrected version of the paper https://arxiv.org/abs/1412.3701v4
published originally on August 26, 2016
Finite-state Strategies in Delay Games (full version)
What is a finite-state strategy in a delay game? We answer this surprisingly
non-trivial question by presenting a very general framework that allows to
remove delay: finite-state strategies exist for all winning conditions where
the resulting delay-free game admits a finite-state strategy. The framework is
applicable to games whose winning condition is recognized by an automaton with
an acceptance condition that satisfies a certain aggregation property. Our
framework also yields upper bounds on the complexity of determining the winner
of such delay games and upper bounds on the necessary lookahead to win the
game. In particular, we cover all previous results of that kind as special
cases of our uniform approach