A SPIN-Based Model Checker for Telecommunication Protocols

Shanbhag, Vivek K and Gopinath, K (2001) A SPIN-Based Model Checker for Telecommunication Protocols. In: 8th International SPIN Workshop On Model Checking Software, SPIN2001 (Lecture Notes in Computer Science), 19-20 May 2001, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Vol. 2057, 252-271.

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Abstract

Telecommunication protocol standards have in the past and typically still use both an English description of the protocol and an ASN.1 specification of the data model, thus likely making the specification incomplete. ASN.1 is an ITU/ISO data definition language which has been developed to abstractly describe the values protocol data units can assume; this is of considerable interest for model checking, as subtyping in ASN.1 can be used to constrain/construct the state space of the protocol accurately. However, with current practice, any change to the English description cannot easily be checked for consistency while protocols are being developed. The authors have developed a SPIN-based tool called EASN (Enhanced ASN.1) where the behaviour can be formally specified through a language based upon Promela for control structures but with data models from ASNA. An attempt is also made to use international standards (X/Open std on ASN.1/C++ translation) is available so that the tool can be realised with pluggable components. One major design criterion is to enable incremental computation wherever possible (for example: hash values, consistency between alternate representations of state). We have used EASN to validate a simplified model of RLC (Radio Link Control) in the W-CDMA stack that imports datatypes from its associated ASNA model. The authors discuss the motivation and design of the EASN language, the architecture and implementation of the verification tool for EASN and some preliminary performance indicators

Item Type:	Conference Paper
Publisher:	Springer-Verlag
Additional Information:	Copyright of this article belongs to Springer-Verlag.
Department/Centre:	Division of Electrical Sciences > Computer Science & Automation
Date Deposited:	13 Apr 2007
Last Modified:	19 Sep 2010 04:36
URI:	http://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/10429

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