Abstract:
One of the most successful techniques for automatic
verification is that of model checking. For finite automata there exist
since long extremely efficient model-checking algorithms, and in the last
few years these algorithms have been made applicable to the verification of
real-time automata using the region-techniques of Alur and Dill. In this
paper, we continue this transfer of existing techniques from the setting of
finite (untimed) automata to that of timed automata. In particular, a timed
logic 
is put forward, which is sufficiently expressive that
we for any timed automaton may construct a single characteristic formula uniquely characterizing the automaton up to timed
bisimilarity. Also, we prove decidability of the satisfiability problem
for with respect to given bounds on the number of clocks and
constants of the timed automata to be constructed. None of these results have
as yet been succesfully accounted for in the presence of time (An exception
occurs in Alur's thesis in which a decidability result is presented for a
linear timed logic called MITL).
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