Verification of Statecharts Using Data Abstraction

Steffen Helke, Florian Kammuller
2016 International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and Applications  
We present an approach for verifying Statecharts including infinite data spaces. We devise a technique for checking that a formula of the universal fragment of CTL is satisfied by a specification written as a Statechart. The approach is based on a property-preserving abstraction technique that additionally preserves structure. It is prototypically implemented in a logicbased framework using a theorem prover and a model checker. This paper reports on the following results. (1) We present a proof
more » ... infra-structure for Statecharts in the theorem prover Isabelle/HOL, which constitutes a basis for defining a mechanised data abstraction process. The formalisation is based on Hierarchical Automata (HA) which allow a structural decomposition of Statecharts into Sequential Automata. (2) Based on this theory we introduce a data abstraction technique, which can be used to abstract the data space of a HA for a given abstraction function. The technique is based on constructing over-approximations. It is structure-preserving and is designed in a compositional way. (3) For reasons of practicability, we finally present two tactics supporting the abstraction that we have implemented in Isabelle/HOL. To make proofs more efficient, these tactics use the model checker SMV checking abstract models automatically. Abstracted counterparts to HA and F are defined using the operators AbsBy + HA and AbsBy -CTL for a given abstraction 3 The current version is ported to Isabelle 2013-2 and uses CVC3 [38], because SVC will be not longer supported by all plattforms.
doi:10.14569/ijacsa.2016.070179 fatcat:iyfbrril5bcbrhft2x5zuppemu