Abstract

. We propose timed (finite) automata to model the behavior of realtime systems over time. Our definition provides a simple, and yet powerful, way to annotate state-transition graphs with timing constraints using finitely many realvalued clocks . A timed automaton accepts timed words --- infinite sequences in which a real-valued time of occurrence is associated with each symbol. We study timed automata from the perspective of formal language theory: we consider closure properties, decision problems, and subclasses. We consider both nondeterministic and deterministic transition structures, and both Buchi and Muller acceptance conditions. We show that nondeterministic timed automata are closed under union and intersection, but not under complementation, whereas deterministic timed Muller automata are closed under all Boolean operations. The main construction of the paper is an (PSPACE) algorithm for checking the emptiness of the language of a (nondeterministic) timed automaton. We also p...

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