Partial Order Reduction in Model Checking of Object-Oriented Petri Nets

object-oriented Petri nets, formal analysis and verification, state space, model checking, partial order reduction

In this paper, we discuss some on-the-fly methods for model checking over OOPNs, i.e. methods in which generation of state spaces is done simultaneously with (and is guided by) checking the appropriate property. A big challenge in finite-state model checking is the state space explosion problem, i.e. the exponential growth of state spaces. Fortunately, there have been proposed many advanced methods for reducing state spaces. One of the most successful methods (especially when dealing with software systems) is the so-called partial-order reduction. We examine how this method can be used in the context of OOPNs, which bring in features like dynamic instantiation, late binding, garbage collection, etc.