Jane Hillston (Informatics, University of Edinburgh)

A fluid approach to model checking
Joint work with Luca Bortolussi (University of Trieste, CNR and University of Saarbrueken).
Wednesday 28 January 2015 at 15.00, JCMB 6206

Abstract

In computer science, "model checking" refers to a technique for automatically querying the behaviour of an automata-based model with respect to a property expressed in a suitable logic. This technique has been extended to continuous time Markov chain (CTMC) models with properties expressed in the Continuous Stochastic Logic (CSL). However, this technique relies on an explicit representation of the state space, with suitable modification to reflect the property of interest. For many models, particularly population CTMC (PCTMC) the approach becomes intractable.

For some analysis of PCTMCs, based on Kurtz's Theorem, a fluid or mean field approximation of the CTMC is used, capturing the dynamics of the system instead as a set of ordinary differential equations (ODEs). This avoids the state space explosion problem and gives a good approximation of the expected behaviour of the process; an approximation that improves as the size of the system gets larger.

In this talk I will introduce the ideas of model checking CTMCs and the logic CSL. I will then go on to present recent work on adapting the model checking approach to work with a fluid representation of a PCTMC, when checking properties of a single agent within the system.

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