We present a formal model for concurrent systems. The model represents synchronous and asynchronous components in a uniform framework that supports compositional (assume-guarantee) and hierarchical (stepwise-refinement) design and verification. While synchronous models are based on a notion of atomic computation step, and asynchronous models remove that notion by introducing stuttering, our model is based on a flexible notion of what constitutes a computation step: by applying an abstraction operator to a system, arbitrarily many consecutive steps can be collapsed into a single step. The abstraction operator, which may turn an asynchronous system into a synchronous one, allows us to describe systems at various levels of temporal detail. For describing systems at various levels of spatial detail, we use a hiding operator that may turn a synchronous system into an asynchronous one. We illustrate the model with diverse examples from synchronous circuits, asynchronous shared-m...

Abstract. Compositional verification is a promising approach to addressing the state explosion problem associated with model checking. One compositional technique advocates proving properties of a system by checking properties of its components in an assume-guarantee style. However, the application of this technique is difficult because it involves non-trivial human input. This paper presents a novel framework for performing assume-guarantee reasoning in an incremental and fully automated fashion. To check a component against a property, our approach generates assumptions that the environment needs to satisfy for the property to hold. These assumptions are then discharged on the rest of the system. Assumptions are computed by a learning algorithm. They are initially approximate, but become gradually more precise by means of counterexamples obtained by model checking the component and its environment, alternately. This iterative process may at any stage conclude that the property is either true or false in the system. We have implemented our approach in the LTSA tool and applied it to a NASA system.

Assume-guarantee reasoning has long been advertised as an important method for decomposing proof obligations in system verification. Re nement mappings (homomorphisms) have long been advertised as an important method for solving the language-inclusion problem in practice. When confronted with large verification problems, we therefore attempted to make use of both techniques. We soon found that rather than o ering instant solutions, the success of assumeg-uarantee reasoning depends critically on the construction of suitable abstraction modules, and the success of refinement checking depends critically on the construction of suitable witness modules. Moreover, as abstractions need to be witnessed, and witnesses abstracted, the process must be iterated. We present here the main lessons we learned from our experiments, in form of a systematic and structured discipline for the compositional verification of reactive modules. An infrastructure to support this discipline, and automate parts of the verification, has been implemented in the tool Mocha.

Model checking is an automated technique that can be used to determine whether a system satisfies certain required properties. The typical approach to verifying properties of software components is to check them for all possible environments. In reality, however, a component is only required to satisfy properties in specific environments. Unless these environments are formally characterized and used during verification (assume-guarantee paradigm), the results returned by verification can be overly pessimistic. This work defines a framework that brings a new dimension to model checking of software components. When checking a component against a property, our model checking algorithms return one of the following three results: the component satisfies a property for any environment; the component violates the property for any environment; or finally, our algorithms generate an assumption that characterizes exactly those environments in which the component satisfies its required property. Our approach has been implemented in the LTSA tool and has been applied to the analysis of a NASA application. 1.

Abstraction and composition are the fundamental issues in making model checking viable for software. This paper proposes new techniques for automating abstraction and decomposition using source level type information provided by the programmer. Our system includes two novel components to achieve this end: (1) a new behavioral type-and-effect system for the pi-calculus, which extracts sound models as types, and (2) a new assume-guarantee proof rule for carrying out compositional model checking on the types. Open simulation between CCS processes is used as both the subtyping relation in the type system and the abstraction relation for compositional model checking. We have implemented these ideas in a tool -- Piper. Piper exploits type signatures provided by the programmer to partition the model checking problem, and emit model checking obligations that are discharged using the Spin model checker. We present the details on applying Piper on two examples: (1) the SIS standard for managing trouble tickets across multiple organizations and (2) a file reader from the pipelined implementation of a web server.

agent or group of agents. In this paper, we address the problem of how plans might be developed for a group of agents to cooperate to bring about such a goal. We present a novel approach to this problem, in which the problem is formulated as one of model checking in Alternating Temporal Epistemic Logic (ATEL). After introducing this logic, we present a model checking algorithm for it, and show that the model checking problem for this logic is tractable. We then show how multiagent planning can be treated as a model checking problem in ATEL, and discuss the related issue of checking knowledge preconditions for multiagent plans. We illustrate the approach with an example. We then describe how this example was implemented using the MOCHA model checking system, and conclude by discussing the relationship of our work with that of others in the planning and speech acts communities.

. Compositional model checking methods can be used to reduce the formal verification of a complex system to model checking problems of tractably small size. However, such techniques are difficult to apply to systems that have large data types, such as memory addresses, or large data arrays such as memories or FIFO buffers. They are also limited to the verification of systems with fixed finite resources. In this paper, a method of compositional verification is presented that uses the combination of temporal case splitting and data type reductions to reduce types of unbounded range to small finite types, and arrays of unbounded size to small fixed-size arrays. The method also supports the use of uninterpreted functions in a novel way, that allows model checking to be applied to systems with uninterpreted functions. These techniques are implemented in a proof assistant that also supports compositional reasoning and reductions via symmetry. Application of the method is illustrated...

. In this paper, we report on a recent work for the verication of nonrepudiation

Abstract. The verification problem for a system consisting of components can be decomposed into simpler subproblems for the components using assume-guarantee reasoning. However, such compositional reasoning requires user guidance to identify appropriate assumptions for components. In this paper, we propose an automated solution for discovering assumptions based on the L \Lambda algorithm for active learning of regular languages. We present a symbolic implementation of the learning algorithm, and incorporate it in the model checker NuSMV. Our experiments demonstrate significant savings in the computational requirements of symbolic model checking.

Abstract. Ensuring the reliability of multithreaded software systems is difficult due to the interaction between threads. This paper describes the design and implementation of a static checker for such systems. To avoid considering all possible thread interleavings, the checker uses assumeguarantee reasoning, and relies on the programmer to specify an environment assumption that constrains the interaction between threads. Using this environment assumption, the checker reduces the verification of the original multithreaded program to the verification of several sequential programs, one for each thread. These sequential programs are subsequently analyzed using extended static checking techniques (based on verification conditions and automatic theorem proving). Experience indicates that the checker is capable of handling a range of synchronization disciplines. In addition, the required environment assumptions are simple and intuitive for common synchronization idioms. 1