A fast method of protocol validation using reduced stable state exploration technique

Abstract

Since 1978, when exhaustive reachability analysis technique was proposed the problem of state space explosion came out. Thereafter, in the past decade, many proposals were introduced to solve this problem. Nevertheless, all of them were based on the concept of asynchronous exploration. In this paper we will propose another improved technique — Reduced Stable State Pair (SSP) Exploration, that is based on the concept of synchronous exploration. It uses the responsibility transfer rules to reduce redundant explorations and comparison times which are caused by asynchronous exploration. Thus, we can reach the objective of saving memory storage space and execution time. In this technique, we can separate the whole exploration algorithm into two parts. The first one is synchronous exploration that plays the role of main architecture of the whole algorithm and attempts to explore all stable state pairs. If it meets a collision stable state pair when proceeding with exploration, it will call the second procedure — asynchoronous fair progree exploraton to explore those unstable states. Owing to the independence of both storage and reference of data between each asynchronous fair progress exploration, there will be no problem of state space explosion caused by accumulating of recorded data.