Symbolic model checking without BDDs

A Biere, A Cimatti, E Clarke, Y Zhu - … conference on tools and algorithms for …, 1999 - Springer
International conference on tools and algorithms for the construction and …, 1999Springer
Abstract Symbolic Model Checking, has proven to be a powerful technique for the
verification of reactive systems. BDDs have traditionally been used as a symbolic
representation of the system. In this paper we show how boolean decision procedures, like
Stålmarck's Method or the Davis & Putnam Procedure, can replace BDDs. This new
technique avoids the space blow up of BDDs, generates counterexamples much faster, and
sometimes speeds up the verification. In addition, it produces counterexamples of minimal …
Abstract
Symbolic Model Checking , has proven to be a powerful technique for the verification of reactive systems. BDDs have traditionally been used as a symbolic representation of the system. In this paper we show how boolean decision procedures, like Stålmarck’s Method or the Davis & Putnam Procedure , can replace BDDs. This new technique avoids the space blow up of BDDs, generates counterexamples much faster, and sometimes speeds up the verification. In addition, it produces counterexamples of minimal length. We introduce a bounded model checking procedure for LTL which reduces model checking to propositional satisfiability.We show that bounded LTL model checking can be done without a tableau construction. We have implemented a model checker BMC, based on bounded model checking, and preliminary results are presented.
Springer