A Tutorial Introduction to Symbolic Model Checking

Abstract

Symbolic model checking is a powerful formal verification technique that, contrarily to theorem proving, requires no user assistance. It is able to verify that an implementation, modelled as a labelled finite-state transition graph, satisfies its specification, given as a set of terms in some temporal logic. This chapter introduces the basics of symbolic model checking. We first give the definition of Kripke structures, our model for finite-state transition graph. Temporal logic model checking, including the specification language CTL (Computation Tree Logic), a less powerful verification technique, is then defined. Symbolic model checking itself is then defined. Throughout this tutorial, we use as a running example the alternate bit protocol to illustrate the different concepts.