Towards a Theory of Time-Bounded Verification

We propose a theory of time-bounded verification for realtime systems, in which verification queries are phrased over time intervals of fixed, bounded duration. We argue that this theory is both pertinent , in that it is fully adequate to handle a large proportion of ‘real-world’ real-time systems and specifications; and effective, in that the restriction to bounded time domains reclaims as decidable several of the key decision problems of unbounded real-time verification. Finally, we discuss several directions of ongoing and future work.