EECI 2012: Automata Theory

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This lecture gives an introduction to some concepts and tools in computer science that are used in the remainder of the course. We start with finite transition systems as a mathematical model to describe behavior of systems with finite, discrete states. We use linear-time properties serve as the specification language (e.g., to specify safety or liveness properties) and we discuss the preliminaries that lead to model checking, a commonly used, powerful verification tool.

Lecture Materials

• Lecture slides: Automata Theory (presentation and notation follow that in "Principles of Model Checking" chapters 2.1, 2.2, 3.2-3.4 by Baier and Katoen.)

Further Reading

• Principles of Model Checking, C. Baier and J.-P. Katoen, The MIT Press, 2008. A detailed reference on model checking. Early chapters provide an exposition to automata theory. Slides for this lecture follow this reference.

• Introduction to the Theory of Computation, M. Sipser, PWS Publishing Company, 1997. This is a textbook on theory of computation covering preliminaries in automata theory.

• CDS 270: Verification in Controls: The second half of the course taught in Fall 2009 at Caltech also covered the material in this lecture. There are brief lecture notes and exercises.