Harco Kuppens

Automata Learning Through Counterexample-Guided Abstraction Refinement

Abstraction is the key when learning behavioral models of realistic systems. Hence, in most practical applications where automata learning is used to construct models of software components, researchers manually define abstractions which, depending on the history, map a large set of concrete events to a small set of abstract events that can be handled by automata learning tools. In this article, we show how such abstractions can be constructed fully automatically for a restricted class of extended finite state machines in which one can test for equality of data parameters, but no operations on data are allowed. Our approach uses counterexample-guided abstraction refinement: whenever the current abstraction is too coarse and induces nondeterministic behavior, the abstraction is refined automatically. Using Tomte, a prototype tool implementing our algorithm, we have succeeded to learn – fully automatically – models of several realistic software components, including the biometric passport and the SIP protocol.

Learning Register Automata with Fresh Value Generation

We present a new algorithm for active learning of register automata. Our algorithm uses counterexample-guided abstraction refinement to automatically construct a component which maps in a history dependent manner the large set of actions of an implementation into a small set of actions that can be handled by a Mealy machine learner. The class of register automata that is handled by our algorithm extends previous definitions since it allows for the generation of fresh output values. This feature is crucial in many real-world systems e.g. servers that generate identifiers, passwords or sequence numbers. We have implemented our new algorithm in a tool called Tomte.

Improving active Mealy machine learning for protocol conformance testing

Using a well-known industrial case study from the verification literature, the bounded retransmission protocol, we show how active learning can be used to establish the correctness of protocol implementation I relative to a given reference implementation R. Using active learning, we learn a model MR of reference implementation R, which serves as input for a model-based testing tool that checks conformance of implementation I to MR. In addition, we also explore an alternative approach in which we learn a model MI of implementation I, which is compared to model MR using an equivalence checker. Our work uses a unique combination of software tools for model construction (Uppaal), active learning (LearnLib, Tomte), model-based testing (JTorX, TorXakis) and verification (CADP, MRMC). We show how these tools can be used for learning models of and revealing errors in implementations, present the new notion of a conformance oracle, and demonstrate how conformance oracles can be used to speed up conformance checking.

Three-dimensional fast exact Euclidean distance (3D-FEED) maps

In image and video analysis, distance maps are frequently used. They provide the (Euclidean) distance (ED) of background pixels to the nearest object pixel. Recently, the Fast Exact Euclidean Distance (FEED) transformation was launched. In this paper, we present the three dimensional (3D) version of FEED. 3D-FEED is compared with four other methods for a wide range of 3D test images. 3D-FEED proved to be twice as fast as the fastest algorithm available. Moreover, it provides true exact EDs, where other algorithms only approximate the ED. This unique algorithm makes the difference, especially there where time and precision are of importance.

Timed Fast Exact Euclidean Distance (tFEED) maps

In image and video analysis, distance maps are frequently used. They provide the (Euclidean) distance (ED) of background pixels to the nearest object pixel. In a naive implementation, each object pixel feeds its (exact) ED to each background pixel; then the minimum of these values denotes the ED to the closest object. Recently, the Fast Exact Euclidean Distance (FEED) transformation was launched, which was up to 2x faster than the fastest algorithms available. In this paper, first additional improvements to the original FEED algorithm are discussed. Next, a timed version of FEED (tFEED) is presented, which generates distance maps for video sequences by merging partial maps. For each object in a video, a partial map can be calculated for different frames, where the partial map for fixed objects is only calculated once. In a newly developed, dynamic test-environment for robot navigation purposes, tFEED proved to be up to 7x faster than using FEED on each frame separately. It is up to 4x faster than the fastest ED algorithm available for video sequences and even 40% faster than generating city-block or chamfer distance maps for frames. Hence, tFEED is the first real time algorithm for generating exact ED maps of video sequences.

Video Surveillance using Distance Maps

Human vigilance is limited; hence, automatic motion and distance detection is one of the central issues in video surveillance. Hereby, many aspects are of importance, this paper specially addresses: efficiency, achieving real-time performance, accuracy, and robustness against various noise factors. To obtain fully controlled test environments, an artificial development center for robot navigation is introduced in which several parameters can be set (e.g., number of objects, trajectories and type and amount of noise). In the videos, for each following frame, movement of stationary objects is detected and pixels of moving objects are located from which moving objects are identified in a robust way. An Exact Euclidean Distance Map (E2DM) is utilized to determine accurately the distances between moving and stationary objects. Together with the determined distances between moving objects and the detected movement of stationary objects, this provides the input for detecting unwanted situations in the scene. Further, each intelligent object (e.g., a robot), is provided with its E2DM, allowing the object to plan its course of action. Timing results are specified for each program block of the processing chain for 20 different setups. So, the current paper presents extensive, experimentally controlled research on real-time, accurate, and robust motion detection for video surveillance, using E2DMs, which makes it a unique approach.

Algorithms for Inferring Register Automata

In recent years, two different approaches for learning register automata have been developed: as part of the LearnLib tool algorithms have been implemented that are based on the Nerode congruence for register automata, whereas the Tomte tool implements algorithms that use counterexample-guided abstraction refinement to automatically construct appropriate mappers. In this paper, we compare the LearnLib and Tomte approaches on a newly defined set of benchmarks and highlight their differences and respective strengths.