Generating and Solving Symbolic Parity Games

We present a new tool for verification of modal mu-calculus formulae for process specifications, based on symbolic parity games. It enhances an existing method, that first encodes the problem to a Parameterised Boolean Equation System (PBES) and then instantiates the PBES to a parity game. We improved the translation from specification to PBES to preserve the structure of the specification in the PBES, we extended LTSmin to instantiate PBESs to symbolic parity games, and implemented the recursive parity game solving algorithm by Zielonka for symbolic parity games. We use Multi-valued Decision Diagrams (MDDs) to represent sets and relations, thus enabling the tools to deal with very large systems. The transition relation is partitioned based on the structure of the specification, which allows for efficient manipulation of the MDDs. We performed two case studies on modular specifications, that demonstrate that the new method has better time and memory performance than existing PBES based tools and can be faster (but slightly less memory efficient) than the symbolic model checker NuSMV.Comment: In Proceedings GRAPHITE 2014, arXiv:1407.767

Efficient Instantiation of Parameterised Boolean Equation Systems to Parity Games

Parameterised Boolean Equation Systems (PBESs) are sequences of Boolean fixed point equations with data variables, used for, e.g., verification of modal μ-calculus formulae for process algebraic specifications with data. Solving a PBES is usually done by instantiation to a Parity Game and then solving the game. Practical game solvers exist, but the instantiation step is the bottleneck. We enhance the instantiation in two steps. First, we transform the PBES to a Parameterised Parity Game (PPG), a PBES with each equation either conjunctive or disjunctive. Then we use LTSmin, that offers transition caching, efficient storage of states and both distributed and symbolic state space generation, for generating the game graph. To that end we define a language module for LTSmin, consisting of an encoding of variables with parameters into state vectors, a grouped transition relation and a dependency matrix to indicate the dependencies between parts of the state vector and transition groups. Benchmarks on some large case studies, show that the method speeds up the instantiation significantly and decreases memory usage drastically

Analysing the Control Software of the Compact Muon Solenoid Experiment at the Large Hadron Collider

The control software of the CERN Compact Muon Solenoid experiment contains over 30,000 finite state machines. These state machines are organised hierarchically: commands are sent down the hierarchy and state changes are sent upwards. The sheer size of the system makes it virtually impossible to fully understand the details of its behaviour at the macro level. This is fuelled by unclarities that already exist at the micro level. We have solved the latter problem by formally describing the finite state machines in the mCRL2 process algebra. The translation has been implemented using the ASF+SDF meta-environment, and its correctness was assessed by means of simulations and visualisations of individual finite state machines and through formal verification of subsystems of the control software. Based on the formalised semantics of the finite state machines, we have developed dedicated tooling for checking properties that can be verified on finite state machines in isolation.Comment: To appear in FSEN'11. Extended version with details of the ASF+SDF translation of SML into mCRL

A Logic for True Concurrency

We propose a logic for true concurrency whose formulae predicate about events in computations and their causal dependencies. The induced logical equivalence is hereditary history preserving bisimilarity, and fragments of the logic can be identified which correspond to other true concurrent behavioural equivalences in the literature: step, pomset and history preserving bisimilarity. Standard Hennessy-Milner logic, and thus (interleaving) bisimilarity, is also recovered as a fragment. We also propose an extension of the logic with fixpoint operators, thus allowing to describe causal and concurrency properties of infinite computations. We believe that this work contributes to a rational presentation of the true concurrent spectrum and to a deeper understanding of the relations between the involved behavioural equivalences.Comment: 31 pages, a preliminary version appeared in CONCUR 201

An analysis of the control hierarchy modeling of the CMS detector control system

The supervisory level of the Detector Control System (DCS) of the CMS experiment is implemented using Finite State Machines (FSM), which model the behaviours and control the operations of all the sub-detectors and support services. The FSM tree of the whole CMS experiment consists of more than 30.000 nodes. An analysis of a system of such size is a complex task but is a crucial step towards the improvement of the overall performance of the FSM system. This paper presents the analysis of the CMS FSM system using the micro Common Representation Language 2 (mcrl2) methodology. Individual mCRL2 models are obtained for the FSM systems of the CMS sub-detectors using the ASF+SDF automated translation tool. Different mCRL2 operations are applied to the mCRL2 models. A mCRL2 simulation tool is used to closer examine the system. Visualization of a system based on the exploration of its state space is enabled with a mCRL2 tool. Requirements such as command and state propagation are expressed using modal mu-calculus and checked using a model checking algorithm. For checking local requirements such as endless loop freedom, the Bounded Model Checking technique is applied. This paper discusses these analysis techniques and presents the results of their application on the CMS FSM system

Scalar and Vectorial mu-calculus with Atoms

We study an extension of modal $\mu$-calculus to sets with atoms and we study its basic properties. Model checking is decidable on orbit-finite structures, and a correspondence to parity games holds. On the other hand, satisfiability becomes undecidable. We also show expressive limitations of atom-enriched $\mu$-calculi, and explain how their expressive power depends on the structure of atoms used, and on the choice between basic or vectorial syntax

LTSmin: high-performance language-independent model checking

In recent years, the LTSmin model checker has been extended with support for several new modelling languages, including probabilistic (Mapa) and timed systems (Uppaal). Also, connecting additional language front-ends or ad-hoc state-space generators to LTSmin was simplified using custom C-code. From symbolic and distributed reachability analysis and minimisation, LTSmin’s functionality has developed into a model checker with multi-core algorithms for on-the-fly LTL checking with partial-order reduction, and multi-core symbolic checking for the modal μ calculus, based on the multi-core decision diagram package Sylvan.\ud In LTSmin, the modelling languages and the model checking algorithms are connected through a Partitioned Next-State Interface (Pins), that allows to abstract away from language details in the implementation of the analysis algorithms and on-the-fly optimisations. In the current paper, we present an overview of the toolset and its recent changes, and we demonstrate its performance and versatility in two case studies

A linear translation from LTL to the first-order modal µ-calculus

The modal µ-calculus is a very expressive temporal logic. In particular, logics such as LTL, CTL and CTL* can be translated into the modal mu-calculus, although existing translations of LTL and CTL* are at least exponential in size. We show that an existing simple first-order extension of the modal µ-calculus allows for a linear translation from LTL. Furthermore, we show that solving the translated formulae is as efficient as the best known methods to solve LTL formulae directly