Skip to main content
Log in

Achieving distributed control through model checking

  • Published:
Formal Methods in System Design Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

We apply model checking of knowledge properties to the design of distributed controllers that enforce global constraints on concurrent systems. The problem of synthesizing a distributed controller is undecidable in the general case. We thus look at a variant of the synthesis problem that allows adding temporary synchronizations between processes. We calculate when processes can decide autonomously, based on their knowledge, whether to take or block an action so that the global constraint is not violated. The local knowledge of processes may not suffice to control the processes so as to achieve the global constraint without introducing new deadlocks. When individual processes cannot take a decision alone based on their knowledge, one may coordinate several processes to achieve joint knowledge in order to take joint decisions. A fixed coordination among sets of processes may severely degrade concurrency. Therefore, we propose the use of temporary coordinations. Since realizing such coordinations on a distributed platform induces communication overhead, we strive to minimize their number. We show how this framework is applied to the case of synthesizing a distributed controller for enforcing a priority order. Finally, we show that the general undecidability of distributed synthesis without adding synchronization holds even for the particular problem of enforcing a priority order.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Basu A, Bensalem S, Peled D, Sifakis J (2009) Priority scheduling of distributed systems based on model checking. In: Proceedings of CAV’09. LNCS, vol 5643. Springer, Berlin, pp 79–93

    Google Scholar 

  2. Bensalem S, Bozga M, Graf S, Peled D, Quinton S (2010) Methods for knowledge-based controlling of distributed systems. In: Proceedings of ATVA’10. LNCS, vol 6252. Springer, Berlin, pp 52–66

    Google Scholar 

  3. Fagin R, Halpern JY, Vardi MY, Moses Y (1995) Reasoning about knowledge. MIT Press, Cambridge

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  4. Genrich HJ, Lautenbach K (1981) System modelling with high-level petri nets. Theor Comput Sci 13:109–136

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  5. Katz G, Peled D (2010) Code mutation in verification and automatic code correction. In: Proceedings of TACAS’10. LNCS, vol 6015. Springer, Berlin, pp 435–450

    Google Scholar 

  6. Katz G, Peled D, Schewe S (2011) Synthesis of Distributed Control through Knowledge Accumulation. In: Proceedings of CAV’11. LNCS, vol 6807. Springer, Berlin, pp 510–525

    Google Scholar 

  7. Keller RM (1976) Formal verification of parallel programs. Commun ACM 19(7):371–384

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  8. van der Meyden R (1998) Common knowledge and update in finite environment. Inf Comput 140(2):115–157

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  9. Orlin JB (1977) Contentment in graph theory: covering graphs with cliques. Indag Math 80(5):406–424

    MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  10. Pérez JA, Corchuelo R, Toro M (2004) An order-based algorithm for implementing multiparty synchronization. Concurr Pract Exp 16(12):1173–1206

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Rudie K, Ricker SL (2000) Know means no: Incorporating knowledge into discrete-event control systems. IEEE Trans Autom Control 45(9):1656–1668

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  12. Rudie K, Wonham WM (1992) Think globally, act locally: decentralized supervisory control. IEEE Trans Autom Control 37(11):1692–1708

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  13. Thistle JG (2005) Undecidability in decentralized supervision. Syst Control Lett 54:503–509

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  14. Thomas W (1995) On the synthesis of strategies in infinite games. In: Proceedings of STACS’95. LNCS, vol 900. Springer, Berlin, pp 1–13

    Google Scholar 

  15. Tripakis S (2004) Undecidable problems of decentralized observation and control on regular languages. Inf Process Lett 90(1):21–28

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  16. Yoo TS, Lafortune S (2002) A general architecture for decentralized supervisory control of discrete-event systems. Discret Event Dyn Syst 12(3):335–377

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sophie Quinton.

Additional information

The work of D. Peled was supported in part by ISF grant 1262/09.

This work was undertaken while Sophie Quinton was at VERIMAG.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Graf, S., Peled, D. & Quinton, S. Achieving distributed control through model checking. Form Methods Syst Des 40, 263–281 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10703-011-0138-9

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10703-011-0138-9

Keywords

Navigation