An Experiment on Parallel Model Checking of a CTL Fragment

TL;DR

This paper introduces a parallel, space-efficient model checking algorithm for a CTL fragment that leverages multi-core architectures, with performance evaluations and comparisons to existing tools.

Contribution

It presents a novel parallel, on-the-fly model checking algorithm for a CTL fragment that operates efficiently without storing the entire transition graph.

Findings

Performance improvements over existing tools

Effective parallelization on multi-core architectures

Space-efficient approach using reverse spanning trees

Abstract

We propose a parallel algorithm for local, on the fly, model checking of a fragment of CTL that is well-suited for modern, multi-core architectures. This model-checking algorithm takes bene t from a parallel state space construction algorithm, which we described in a previous work, and shares the same basic set of principles: there are no assumptions on the models that can be analyzed; no restrictions on the way states are distributed; and no restrictions on the way work is shared among processors. We evaluate the performance of diff erent versions of our algorithm and compare our results with those obtained using other parallel model checking tools. One of the most novel contributions of this work is to study a space-e fficient variant for CTL model-checking that does not require to store the whole transition graph but that operates on a reverse spanning tree.