English

Formalizing the Soundness of the Encoding Methods of SAT-based Model Checking

Logic in Computer Science 2022-03-14 v2

Abstract

One of the effective model checking methods is to utilize the efficient decision procedure of SAT (or SMT) solvers. In a SAT-based model checking, a system and its property are encoded into a set of logic formulas and the safety is checked based on the satisfiability of the formulas. As the encoding methods are improved and crafted (e.g., k-induction and IC3/PDR), verifying their correctness becomes more important. This research aims at a formal verification of the SMC methods using the Coq proof assistant. Our contributions are twofold: (1) We specify the basic encoding methods, k-induction and (a simplified version of) IC3/PDR in Coq as a set of simple and modular encoding predicates. (2) We provide a formal proof of the soundness of the encoding methods based on our formalized lemmas on state sequences and paths.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2006.13613,
  title  = {Formalizing the Soundness of the Encoding Methods of SAT-based Model Checking},
  author = {Daisuke Ishii and Saito Fujii},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2006.13613},
  year   = {2022}
}

Comments

Accepted to be published in the 14th International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Software Engineering (TASE), 2020; path length k+1 in the bounded safety encoding, which was redundant, was decremented; fixed typo in Eq (12)

R2 v1 2026-06-23T16:35:05.020Z