Igor Walukiewicz

Games for synthesis of controllers with partial observation

The synthesis of controllers for discrete event systems, as introduced by Ramadge and Wonham, amounts to computing winning strategies in parity games. We show that in this framework it is possible to extend the specifications of the supervised systems as well as the constraints on the controllers by expressing them in the modal µ-calculus.In order to express unobservability constraints, we propose an extension of the modal µ-calculus in which one can specify whether an edge of a graph is a loop. This extended µ-calculus still has the interesting properties of the classical one. In particular it is equivalent to automata with loop testing. The problems such as emptiness testing and elimination of alternation are solvable for such automata.The method proposed in this paper to solve a control problem consists in transforming this problem into a problem of satisfiability of a µ-calculus formula so that the set of models of this formula is exactly the set of controllers that solve the problem. This transformation relies on a simple construction of the quotient of automata with loop testing by a deterministic transition system. This is enough to deal with centralized control problems. The solution of decentralized control problems uses a more involved construction of the quotient of two automata.This work extends the framework of Ramadge and Wonham in two directions. We consider infinite behaviours and arbitrary regular specifications, while the standard framework deals only with specifications on the set of finite paths of processes. We also allow dynamic changes of the sets of observable and controllable events.

Pushdown Processes

Abstract A pushdown game is a two player perfect information infinite game on a transition graph of a pushdown automaton. A winning condition in such a game is defined in terms of states appearing infinitely often in the play. It is shown that if there is a winning strategy in a pushdown game then there is a winning strategy realized by a pushdown automaton. An EXPTIME procedure for finding a winner in a pushdown game is presented. The procedure is then used to solve the model-checking problem for the pushdown processes and the propositional μ -calculus. The problem is shown to be DEXPTIME-complete.

Guarded fixed point logic

Guarded fixed point logics are obtained by adding least and greatest fixed points to the guarded fragments of first-order logic that were recently introduced by H. Andreka et al. (1998). Guarded fixed point logics can also be viewed as the natural common extensions of the modal p-calculus and the guarded fragments. We prove that the satisfiability problems for guarded fixed point logics are decidable and complete for deterministic double exponential time. For guarded fixed point sentences of bounded width, the most important case for applications, the satisfiability problem is EXPTIME-complete.

How much memory is needed to win infinite games

We consider a class of infinite two-player games on finitely coloured graphs. Our main question is: given a winning condition, what is the inherent blow-up (additional memory) of the size of the I/O automata realizing winning strategies in games with this condition. This problem is relevant to synthesis of reactive programs and to the theory of automata on infinite objects. We provide matching upper and lower bounds for the size of memory needed by winning strategies in games with a fixed winning condition. We also show that in the general case the LAR (latest appearance record) data structure of Gurevich and Harrington is optimal. Then we propose a more succinct way of representing winning strategies by means of parallel compositions of transition systems. We study the question: which classes of winning conditions admit only polynomial-size blowup of strategies in this representation.

Monadic second-order logic on tree-like structures

An operation M* which constructs from a given structure M a tree-like structure whose domain consists of the finite sequences of elements of M is considered. A notion of automata running on such tree-like structures is defined. It is shown that automata of this kind characterise expressive power of monadic second-order logic (MSOL) over tree-like structures. Using this characterisation it is proved that MSOL theory of a tree-like structure is effectively reducible to that of the original structure. As another application of the characterisation it is shown that MSOL on trees of arbitrary degree is equivalent to first-order logic extended with unary least fixpoint operator.

Model Checking CTL Properties of Pushdown Systems

A pushdown system is a graph G(P) of configurations of a pushdown automaton P. The model checking problem for a logic L is: given a pushdown automaton P and a formula α ∈ L decide if a holds in the vertex of G(P) which is the initial configuration of P. Computation Tree Logic (CTL) and its fragment EF are considered. The model checking problems for CTL and EF are shown to be EXPTIME-complete and PSPACE-complete, respectively.

Alternating timed automata

A notion of alternating timed automata is proposed. It is shown that such automata with only one clock have decidable emptiness problem over finite words. This gives a new class of timed languages that is closed under boolean operations and which has an effective presentation. We prove that the complexity of the emptiness problem for alternating timed automata with one clock is nonprimitive recursive. The proof gives also the same lower bound for the universality problem for nondeterministic timed automata with one clock. We investigate extension of the model with epsilon-transitions and prove that emptiness is undecidable. Over infinite words, we show undecidability of the universality problem.

An expressively complete linear time temporal logic for Mazurkiewicz traces

A basic result concerning LTL, the propositional temporal logic of linear time is that it is expressively complete; it is equal in expressive power to the first order theory of sequences. We present here a smooth extension of this result to the class of partial orders known as Mazurkiewicz traces. These partial orders arise in a variety of contexts in concurrency theory and they provide the conceptual basis for many of the partial order reduction methods that have been developed in connection with LTL-specifications. We show that LTrL, our linear time temporal logic, is equal in expressive power to the first order theory of traces when interpreted over (finite and) infinite traces. This result fills a prominent gap in the existing logical theory of infinite traces. LTrL also provides a syntactic characterisation of the so called trace consistent (robust) LTL-specifications. These are specifications expressed as LTL formulas that do not distinguish between different linearisations of the same trace and hence are amenable to partial order reduction methods.

Permissive strategies: from parity games to safety games

It is proposed to compare strategies in a parity game by comparing the sets of behaviours they allow. For such a game, there may be no winning strategy that encompasses all the behaviours of all winning strategies. It is shown, however, that there always exists a permissive strategy that encompasses all the behaviours of all memoryless strategies. An algorithm for finding such a permissive strategy is presented. Its complexity matches currently known upper bounds for the simpler problem of finding the set of winning positions in a parity game. The algorithm can be seen as a reduction of a parity to a safety game and computation of the set of winning positions in the resulting game.

MONADIC SECOND-ORDER LOGIC, GRAPH COVERINGS AND UNFOLDINGS OF TRANSITION SYSTEMS

Abstract We prove that every monadic second-order property of the unfolding of a transition system is a monadic second-order property of the system itself. An unfolding is an instance of the general notion of graph covering. We consider two more instances of this notion. A similar result is possible for one of them but not for the other.