On proving safety properties by integrating static analysis, theorem proving and abstraction

Abstract

We present a new approach for proving safety properties of reactive systems, based on tight interaction between static analysis, theorem proving and abstraction techniques. The method incrementally constructs a proof or finds a counterexample. Every step consists of applying one of the techniques and makes constructive use of information obtained from failures in previous steps. The amount of user intervention is limited and is highly guided by the system at each step. We demonstrate the method on three simple examples, and show that by using it one can prove more properties than by using each component as a stand-alone.