Reducing Clocks in Timed Automata while Preserving Bisimulation

Model checking timed automata becomes increasingly complex with the increase in the number of clocks. Hence it is desirable that one constructs an automaton with the minimum number of clocks possible. The problem of checking whether there exists a timed automaton with a smaller number of clocks such that the timed language accepted by the original automaton is preserved is known to be undecidable. In this paper, we give a construction, which for any given timed automaton produces a timed bisimilar automaton with the least number of clocks. Further, we show that such an automaton with the minimum possible number of clocks can be constructed in time that is doubly exponential in the number of clocks of the original automaton.Comment: 28 pages including reference, 8 figures, full version of paper accepted in CONCUR 201

Fragility and Robustness in Mean-Payoff Adversarial Stackelberg Games

Two-player mean-payoff Stackelberg games are nonzero-sum infinite duration games played on a bi-weighted graph by Leader (Player 0) and Follower (Player 1). Such games are played sequentially: first, Leader announces her strategy, second, Follower chooses his best-response. If we cannot impose which best-response is chosen by Follower, we say that Follower, though strategic, is adversarial towards Leader. The maximal value that Leader can get in this nonzero-sum game is called the adversarial Stackelberg value (ASV) of the game. We study the robustness of strategies for Leader in these games against two types of deviations: (i) Modeling imprecision - the weights on the edges of the game arena may not be exactly correct, they may be delta-away from the right one. (ii) Sub-optimal response - Follower may play epsilon-optimal best-responses instead of perfect best-responses. First, we show that if the game is zero-sum then robustness is guaranteed while in the nonzero-sum case, optimal strategies for ASV are fragile. Second, we provide a solution concept to obtain strategies for Leader that are robust to both modeling imprecision, and as well as to the epsilon-optimal responses of Follower, and study several properties and algorithmic problems related to this solution concept

Expected Window Mean-Payoff

We study the expected value of the window mean-payoff measure in Markov decision processes (MDPs) and Markov chains (MCs). The window mean-payoff measure strengthens the classical mean-payoff measure by measuring the mean-payoff over a window of bounded length that slides along an infinite path. This measure ensures better stability properties than the classical mean-payoff. Window mean-payoff has been introduced previously for two-player zero-sum games. As in the case of games, we study several variants of this definition: the measure can be defined to be prefix-independent or not, and for a fixed window length or for a window length that is left parametric. For fixed window length, we provide polynomial time algorithms for the prefix-independent version for both MDPs and MCs. When the length is left parametric, the problem of computing the expected value on MDPs is as hard as computing the mean-payoff value in two-player zero-sum games, a problem for which it is not known if it can be solved in polynomial time. For the prefix-dependent version, surprisingly, the expected window mean-payoff value cannot be computed in polynomial time unless P=PSPACE. For the parametric case and the prefix-dependent case, we manage to obtain algorithms with better complexities for MCs

Safe and Optimal Scheduling for Hard and Soft Tasks

We consider a stochastic scheduling problem with both hard and soft tasks on a single machine. Each task is described by a discrete probability distribution over possible execution times, and possible inter-arrival times of the job, and a fixed deadline. Soft tasks also carry a penalty cost to be paid when they miss a deadline. We ask to compute an online and non-clairvoyant scheduler (i.e. one that must take decisions without knowing the future evolution of the system) that is safe and efficient. Safety imposes that deadline of hard tasks are never violated while efficient means that we want to minimise the mean cost of missing deadlines by soft tasks. First, we show that the dynamics of such a system can be modelled as a finite Markov Decision Process (MDP). Second, we show that our scheduling problem is PP-hard and in EXPTime. Third, we report on a prototype tool that solves our scheduling problem by relying on the Storm tool to analyse the corresponding MDP. We show how antichain techniques can be used as a potential heuristic

Revisiting Robustness in Priced Timed Games

Priced timed games are optimal-cost reachability games played between two players---the controller and the environment---by moving a token along the edges of infinite graphs of configurations of priced timed automata. The goal of the controller is to reach a given set of target locations as cheaply as possible, while the goal of the environment is the opposite. Priced timed games are known to be undecidable for timed automata with $3$ or more clocks, while they are known to be decidable for automata with $1$ clock. In an attempt to recover decidability for priced timed games Bouyer, Markey, and Sankur studied robust priced timed games where the environment has the power to slightly perturb delays proposed by the controller. Unfortunately, however, they showed that the natural problem of deciding the existence of optimal limit-strategy---optimal strategy of the controller where the perturbations tend to vanish in the limit---is undecidable with $10$ or more clocks. In this paper we revisit this problem and improve our understanding of the decidability of these games. We show that the limit-strategy problem is already undecidable for a subclass of robust priced timed games with $5$ or more clocks. On a positive side, we show the decidability of the existence of almost optimal strategies for the same subclass of one-clock robust priced timed games by adapting a classical construction by Bouyer at al. for one-clock priced timed games

A Unifying Approach to Decide Relations for Timed Automata and their Game Characterization

In this paper we present a unifying approach for deciding various bisimulations, simulation equivalences and preorders between two timed automata states. We propose a zone based method for deciding these relations in which we eliminate an explicit product construction of the region graphs or the zone graphs as in the classical methods. Our method is also generic and can be used to decide several timed relations. We also present a game characterization for these timed relations and show that the game hierarchy reflects the hierarchy of the timed relations. One can obtain an infinite game hierarchy and thus the game characterization further indicates the possibility of defining new timed relations which have not been studied yet. The game characterization also helps us to come up with a formula which encodes the separation between two states that are not timed bisimilar. Such distinguishing formulae can also be generated for many relations other than timed bisimilarity.Comment: In Proceedings EXPRESS/SOS 2013, arXiv:1307.690

A Game of Pawns

We introduce and study pawn games, a class of two-player zero-sum turn-based graph games. A turn-based graph game proceeds by placing a token on an initial vertex, and whoever controls the vertex on which the token is located, chooses its next location. This leads to a path in the graph, which determines the winner. Traditionally, the control of vertices is predetermined and fixed. The novelty of pawn games is that control of vertices changes dynamically throughout the game as follows. Each vertex of a pawn game is owned by a pawn. In each turn, the pawns are partitioned between the two players, and the player who controls the pawn that owns the vertex on which the token is located, chooses the next location of the token. Control of pawns changes dynamically throughout the game according to a fixed mechanism. Specifically, we define several grabbing-based mechanisms in which control of at most one pawn transfers at the end of each turn. We study the complexity of solving pawn games, where we focus on reachability objectives and parameterize the problem by the mechanism that is being used and by restrictions on pawn ownership of vertices. On the positive side, even though pawn games are exponentially-succinct turn-based games, we identify several natural classes that can be solved in PTIME. On the negative side, we identify several EXPTIME-complete classes, where our hardness proofs are based on a new class of games called Lock & Key games, which may be of independent interest