Implementation of propositional temporal logics using BDDs

This tutorial intends to convey the step-by-step process by which computer programs for model checking and satisfiability testing for temporal logics may be derived from the theory. The idea is to demonstrate that it is very well possible to implement such a program in an efficient way without sacrificing a correct-by-construction approach. The tutorial will be fully self-contained, only a general knowledge of programming and propositional logic is assumed

prof.Dr.-Ing. J.A.G. Jess,en

commissie aangewezen door het College voor Promoties in het openbaar te verdedigen op woensdag 24 febr uar i 1999 om 16.00 uur doo

A performance study of BDD-based model checking

We present a study of the computational aspects of model checking based on binary decision diagrams (BDDs). By using a trace-based evaluation framework, we are able to generate realistic benchmarks and perform this evaluation collaboratively across several different BDD packages. This collaboration has resulted in significant performance improvements and in the discovery of several interesting characteristics of model checking computations. One of the main conclusions of this work is that the BDD computations in model checking and in building BDDs for the outputs of combinational circuits have fundamentally different performance characteristics. The systematic evaluation has also uncovered several open issues that suggest new research directions. We hope that the evaluation methodology used in this study will help lay the foundation for future evaluation of BDD-based algorithms