Unfoldings

Model checking is a prominent technique used in the hardware and software industries for automatic verification. While it is very successful in finding subtle bugs in distributed systems, it faces the state explosion problem - the number of reachable states grows exponentially in the number of concurrent components.

In this book the authors introduce unfoldings, an approach to model checking which alleviates the state explosion problem by means of concurrency theory. They offer a gentle introduction to the basics of the method, and in particular they detail an unfolding-based algorithm for model checking concurrent systems against properties specified as formulas of linear temporal logic (LTL). Self-contained chapters cover transition systems and their products; unfolding products; search procedures for basic verification problems, such as reachability and livelocks; and model checking LTL. The final chapter summarizes the results of the book, and points the reader to tools and case studies.

The book will be of value to researchers and graduate students engaged in automatic verification and concurrency theory.

• Algorithms
• Automat
• algorithm
• distributed systems
• logic
• model checking
• verification

From the reviews:

"In this book the authors show that the study of ‘unfoldings’, a mathematical formalism for the description and analysis of concurrent systems, alleviates the state explosion problem. … Most of the chapters are self-contained in order to increase the readability of the content. … The book provides a good overview on unfoldings techniques to researchers and graduate students engaged in model checking and concurrency theory. It can also be of interest to other people, outside computer science, since concurrency occurs everywere." (Viorel Mihai Gontineac, Zentrablatt MATH, Vol. 1153, 2009)

“The authors are leading experts in the field and provide an excellent account of the most important results in unfoldings within a coherent framework, which is accompanied by many examples. … Overall, this monograph is a success and highly recommended reading for everyone interested in concurrency and automatic verification.” (Gerald Lüttgen, Mathematical Reviews, Issue 2011 k)

• Chair for Foundations of Software Reliability and Theoretical Computer Science, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany

  Javier Esparza

• Department of Information and Computer Science, Helsinki University of Technology (TKK), Finland

  Keijo Heljanko