Resolution approach to testing compatibility of interacting automata

Abstract

The notion of compatibility of automata was proposed in [1] for formalization of requirements that must be met by interacting partial automata. Testing the compatibility of automata is of essential importance for the design of systems that interact with the environment, especially when we use declarative specificatio of the system to be designed. Under the assumptions of this article for the automaton that models the environment, partiality of the specified automaton is a source of possible incompatibility with the environment. When declarative specification is used, we can never decide in advance if the specified automaton is partial or not. Moreover, even a specification thata priori describes a completely defined automaton may be altered by the actions of the designer in the process of design (especially if these actions are incorrect) so that the specified automaton becomes partial. Therefore the initial specification, and each successive specification produced by human intervention in the design process, must be tested for compatibility with the environment.