In this paper we review the actor-based language, Timed Rebeca, with a focus
on its formal semantics and formal verification techniques. Timed Rebeca can be
used to model systems consisting of encapsulated components which communicate
by asynchronous message passing. Messages are put in the message buffer of the
receiver actor and can be seen as events. Components react to these
messages/events and execute the corresponding message/event handler. Real-time
features, like computation delay, network delay and periodic behavior, can be
modeled in the language. We explain how both Floating-Time Transition System
(FTTS) and common Timed Transition System (TTS) can be used as the semantics of
such models and the basis for model checking. We use FTTS when we are
interested in event-based properties, and it helps in state space reduction.
For checking the properties based on the value of variables at certain point in
time, we use the TTS semantics. The model checking toolset supports
schedulability analysis, deadlock and queue-overflow check, and assertion based
verification of Timed Rebeca models. TCTL model checking based on TTS is also
possible but is not integrated in the tool.Comment: In Proceedings EXPRESS/SOS2023, arXiv:2309.0578