Slice or Unfold - Experiments on Checking Synchronous Models with Backwards Slicing

Abstract

Abstract: Nowadays, model checking approaches have one major drawback: They suffer from the state space explosion problem. We think one major problem is that the verification tools always must hold some (symbolic) representation, e.g. a BDD or a adjacency list, in the memory during the verification process. In this paper we propose a verification approach that does not need to hold a complete representation while checking the model. This is done by slicing backward the transition rules, which defines the complete state system.Here, we present the basic backward slicing approach for verifying CTL safety properties traversing the state machine by using a given transition model. In the following, we give a little evaluation with special test models and compare the results to the state of the art model checker nuXmv.