Reachability Analysis of Hybrid Systems via Predicate Abstraction

Predicate abstraction has emerged to be a powerful technique for extracting finite-state models from infinite-state discrete programs. This paper presents algorithms and tools for reachability analysis of hybrid systems by combining the notion of predicate abstraction with recent techniques for approximating the set of reachable states of linear systems using polyhedra. Given a hybrid system and a set of user-defined boolean predicates, we consider the finite discrete quotient whose states correspond to all possible truth assignments to the input predicates. The tool performs an on-the-fly exploration of the abstract system. We demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed technique by analyzing a parametric timing-based mutual exclusion protocol and safety of a simple controller for vehicle coordination.