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On-the-Fly Confluence Detection for Statistical Model Checking

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NASA Formal Methods (NFM 2013)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNPSE,volume 7871))

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Abstract

Statistical model checking is an analysis method that circumvents the state space explosion problem in model-based verification by combining probabilistic simulation with statistical methods that provide clear error bounds. As a simulation-based technique, it can only provide sound results if the underlying model is a stochastic process. In verification, however, models are usually variations of nondeterministic transition systems. The notion of confluence allows the reduction of such transition systems in classical model checking by removing spurious nondeterministic choices. In this paper, we show that confluence can be adapted to detect and discard such choices on-the-fly during simulation, thus extending the applicability of statistical model checking to a subclass of Markov decision processes. In contrast to previous approaches that use partial order reduction, the confluence-based technique can handle additional kinds of nondeterminism. In particular, it is not restricted to interleavings. We evaluate our approach, which is implemented as part of the modes simulator for the Modest modelling language, on a set of examples that highlight its strengths and limitations and show the improvements compared to the partial order-based method.

This work has been supported by the DFG/NWO Bilateral Research Program ROCKS, by NWO under grant 612.063.817 (SYRUP), by the EU FP7-ICT project MEALS, contract no. 295261, and by the DFG as part of SFB/TR 14 AVACS.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Computer Science, Saarland University, Saarbrücken, Germany

    Arnd Hartmanns

  2. Formal Methods and Tools, University of Twente, The Netherlands

    Mark Timmer

Authors
  1. Arnd Hartmanns
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  2. Mark Timmer
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. NASA Ames Research Center, M/S 269-2, Moffett Field, 94035-0001, CA, USA

    Guillaume Brat

  2. Stinger Ghaffarian Technologies Inc., NASA Ames Research Center, M/S 269-2, Moffett Field, 94035-0001, CA, USA

    Neha Rungta

  3. NASA Ames Research Center, Carnegie Mellon University, M/S 269-2, Moffett Field, 94035-0001, CA, USA

    Arnaud Venet

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Hartmanns, A., Timmer, M. (2013). On-the-Fly Confluence Detection for Statistical Model Checking. In: Brat, G., Rungta, N., Venet, A. (eds) NASA Formal Methods. NFM 2013. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 7871. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-38088-4_23

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-38088-4_23

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-38087-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-38088-4

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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