Monotonic Abstraction Techniques: from Parametric to Software Model Checking

TL;DR

This paper explores monotonic abstraction techniques, originally for parameterized distributed systems, and extends their application to software model checking through logical over-approximation methods, enhancing verification processes.

Contribution

It reinterprets monotonic abstraction in a declarative setting and demonstrates its effectiveness in software model checking via array acceleration over-approximation.

Findings

Effective over-approximation of array accelerations

Enhanced CEGAR loop integration in software verification

Broader applicability of monotonic abstraction techniques

Abstract

Monotonic abstraction is a technique introduced in model checking parameterized distributed systems in order to cope with transitions containing global conditions within guards. The technique has been re-interpreted in a declarative setting in previous papers of ours and applied to the verification of fault tolerant systems under the so-called "stopping failures" model. The declarative reinterpretation consists in logical techniques (quantifier relativizations and, especially, quantifier instantiations) making sense in a broader context. In fact, we recently showed that such techniques can over-approximate array accelerations, so that they can be employed as a meaningful (and practically effective) component of CEGAR loops in software model checking too.