State/event-based LTL model checking under parametric generalized fairness

Abstract

In modeling a concurrent system, fairness constraints are usually considered at a specific granularity level of the system, leading to many different variants of fairness: transition fairness, object/process fairness, actor fairness, etc. These different notions of fairness can be unified by making explicit their parametrization over the relevant entities in the system as universal quantification. We propose a state/event-based framework as well as an on-the-fly model checking algorithm to verify LTL properties under universally quantified parametric fairness assumptions, specified by generalized strong/weak fairness formulas. It enables verification of temporal properties under fairness conditions associated to dynamic entities such as new process creations. We have implemented our algorithm within the Maude system. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.