On Improving Model Checking of Time Petri Nets and Its Application to the Formal Verification

Time Petri nets (TPN) are successfully used in the specification and analysis of distributed systems that involve explicit timing constraints. Especially, model checking TPN is a hopeful method for the formal verification of such complex systems. For this, it is promising to lean to the construction of an optimized version of the state space. The well-known methods of state space abstraction are SCG (state class graph) and ZBG (graph based on zones). For ZBG, a symbolic state represents the real evaluations of the clocks of the TPN; it is thus possible to directly check quantitative time properties. However, this method suffers from the state space explosion. To attenuate this problem, the authors propose in this paper to combine the ZBG approach with the partial order reduction technique based on stubborn set, leading thus to the proposal of a new state space abstraction called reduced zone-based graph (RZBG). The authors show via case studies the efficiency of the RZBG which is implemented and integrated within the 〖TPN-TCTL〗_h^∆ model checking in the model checker Romeo.