arXiv subjects

Paul Eichler

Publications and source records attributed to Paul Eichler.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

TACO: A Toolsuite for the Verification of Threshold Automata

We present TACO, a toolsuite for the development and automatic verification of fault-tolerant and threshold-based distributed algorithms. Our toolsuite implements three approaches for model checking threshold automata in different decidable fragments known from the literature and two semi-decision procedures going beyond these decidable fragments. Moreover, TACO is a modular, extensible, and well-documented framework for developing algorithms and tools for threshold automata. We present important features, give an overview of the implemented algorithms, and evaluate their performance experimentally.

cs.DC↗

arXiv2024

Parameterized Verification of Systems with Precise (0,1)-Counter Abstraction

We introduce a new framework for verifying systems with a parametric number of concurrently running processes. The systems we consider are well-structured with respect to a specific well-quasi order. This allows us to decide a wide range of verification problems, including control-state reachability, coverability, and target, in a fixed finite abstraction of the infinite state-space, called a 01-counter system. We show that several systems from the parameterized verification literature fall into this class, including reconfigurable broadcast networks (or systems with lossy broadcast), disjunctive systems, synchronizations and systems with a fixed number of shared finite-domain variables. Our framework provides a simple and unified explanation for the properties of these systems, which have so far been investigated separately. Additionally, it extends and improves on a range of the existing results, and gives rise to other systems with similar properties.

cs.FL↗

arXiv2024

Parameterized Verification of Round-based Distributed Algorithms via Extended Threshold Automata

Threshold automata are a computational model that has proven to be versatile in modeling threshold-based distributed algorithms and enabling their completely automatic parameterized verification. We present novel techniques for the verification of threshold automata, based on well-structured transition systems, that allow us to extend the expressiveness of both the computational model and the specifications that can be verified. In particular, we extend the model to allow decrements and resets of shared variables, possibly on cycles, and the specifications to general coverability. While these extensions of the model in general lead to undecidability, our algorithms provide a semi-decision procedure. We demonstrate the benefit of our extensions by showing that we can model complex round-based algorithms such as the phase king consensus algorithm and the Red Belly Blockchain protocol (published in 2019), and verify them fully automatically for the first time.

cs.DC↗

arXiv2024

Parameterized Verification of Disjunctive Timed Networks

We introduce new techniques for the parameterized verification of disjunctive timed networks (DTNs), i.e., networks of timed automata (TAs) that communicate via location guards that enable a transition only if there is another process in a given location. This computational model has been considered in the literature before, example applications are gossiping clock synchronization protocols or planning problems. We address the minimum-time reachability problem (Minreach) in DTNs, and show how to efficiently solve it based on a novel zone graph algorithm. We further show that solving Minreach allows us to construct a summary TA capturing exactly the possible behaviors of a single TA within a DTN of arbitrary size. The combination of these two results enables the parameterized verification of DTNs, while avoiding the construction of an exponential-size cutoff system required by existing results. Additionally, we develop sufficient conditions for solving Minreach and parameterized verification problems even in certain cases where locations that appear in location guards can have clock invariants, a case that has usually been excluded in the literature. Our techniques are also implemented, and experiments show their practicality.

cs.LO↗