Efficient Model Checking Via Büchi Tableau Automata

This paper describes an approach to engineering efficient model checkers that are generic with respect to the temporal logic in which system properties are given. The methodology is based on the “compilation” of temporal formulas into variants of alternating tree automata called alternating Büchi tableau automata (ABTAs). The paper gives an efficient on-the-fly model-checking procedure for ABTAs and illustrates how translations of temporal logics into ABTAs may be concisely specified using inference rules, which may be thus seen as high-level definitions of “model checkers” for the logic given. Heuristics for simplifying ABTAs are also given, as are experimental results in the CWB-NC verification tool suggesting that, despite the generic ABTA basis, our approach can perform better than model checkers targeted for specific logics. The ABTA-based approach we advocate simplifies the retargeting of model checkers to different logics, and it also allows the use of “compile-time” simplifications on ABTAs that improves model-checker performance.