Characterization and computation of infinite-horizon specifications over Markov processes

  • Authors:
  • Ilya Tkachev;Alessandro Abate

  • Affiliations:
  • Delft Center for Systems & Control, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands;Delft Center for Systems & Control, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands and Department of Computer Science, University of Oxford, United Kingdom

  • Venue:
  • Theoretical Computer Science
  • Year:
  • 2014

Quantified Score

Hi-index 5.23

Visualization

Abstract

This work is devoted to the formal verification of specifications over general discrete-time Markov processes, with an emphasis on infinite-horizon properties. These properties, formulated in a modal logic known as PCTL, can be expressed through value functions defined over the state space of the process. The main goal is to understand how structural features of the model (primarily the presence of absorbing sets) influence the uniqueness of the solutions of corresponding Bellman equations. Furthermore, this contribution shows that the investigation of these structural features leads to new computational techniques to calculate the specifications of interest: the emphasis is to derive approximation techniques with associated explicit convergence rates and formal error bounds.