Optimized temporal monitors for SystemC

Abstract

SystemC is a modeling language built as an extension of C++. Its growing popularity and the increasing complexity of designs have motivated research efforts aimed at the verification of SystemC models using assertionbased verification (ABV), where the designer asserts properties that capture the design intent in a formal language such as PSL or SVA. The model then can be verified against the properties using runtime or formal verification techniques. In this paper we focus on automated generation of runtime monitors from temporal properties. Our focus is on minimizing runtime overhead, rather than monitor size or monitor-generation time. We identify four issues in monitor generation: state minimization, alphabet representation, alphabet minimization, and monitor encoding. We conduct extensive experimentation and identify a combination of settings that offers the best performance in terms of runtime overhead.

Runtime-Monitoring for Industrial Control Systems

“…One technique of generating such monitors is by translating the correctness property into an automaton, either deterministic [23], non-deterministic [24,25], with counters [24] or alternating [26][27][28]. The construction of a non-deterministic, with counters or alternating automaton for a correctness property reduces the size and speeds up the monitoring performance.…”

Assertion-based flow monitoring of SystemC models

“…We convert each flow property to a C++ monitor class. Following [20], each monitor is a C++ encoding of a DFA (Deterministic Finite Automaton). The transition function of the DFA is encoded as a step() function in the monitor class.…”

“…Tabakov et al [20] describe how to generate C++ monitor class from DFAs; we use their algorithm here (there are several possible encodings of DFAs as C++ monitors, we use the front det ifelse encoding). To generate DFAs from LT L f formulas we use the SPOT tool [5].…”

Online Testing of LTL Properties for Java Code

“…Using AP , the user can write several LTL properties of the expected behavior of the class methods and, if necessary, of the correct method invocation order. The first step of our approach consists in automatically deriving a monitor from every property by using the technique proposed in [7,22]. Two monitors for the battery properties are shown in Fig.…”

“…In our approach we use minimal deterministic monitors as proposed by Tabakov and Vardi [22] and implemented in SPOT [7]. The monitors are obtained by determinizing and minimizing a Büchi automaton using several techniques like state minimization and alphabet minimization.…”