TAPAAL HyperLTL: A Tool for Checking Hyperproperties of Petri Nets

2025-12-16

AI Summary

Existing temporal logics (e.g., LTL, CTL) cannot express hyperproperties—such as non-interference and observational determinism—that require reasoning across multiple execution traces; moreover, no HyperLTL model checker exists for Petri nets. Method: This paper introduces the first automated HyperLTL verification framework for Petri nets, integrated into the TAPAAL platform. It proposes a Petri-net–semantics–aware HyperLTL interpretation and an efficient verification algorithm combining symbolic state-space unfolding, multi-trace synchronized simulation, and SMT solving. The engine reuses TAPAAL’s existing Colored Petri Net (CPN) analysis infrastructure and supports graphical interaction. Contribution/Results: Evaluated on two standard computer-network benchmark suites, our approach scalably detects violations of representative hyperproperties, achieving significantly higher efficiency than state-of-the-art general-purpose HyperLTL tools.

Technology Category

• Knowledge Representation and Reasoning: Computational Complexity of Reasoning
• Constraint Satisfaction and Optimization: Satisfiability Modulo Theories
• Planning, Routing, and Scheduling: Temporal Planning

Application Category

• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Web performance, measurement, and characterization
• Graph Algorithms and Modeling for the Web: Algorithms and analysis for heterogeneous, signed, attributed, multi-relational, temporal, higher-order, and annotated Web-related graphs
• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: Incentives in network design for Web infrastructures and ecosystems

Abstract

Petri nets are a modeling formalism capable of describing complex distributed systems and there exists a large number of both academic and industrial tools that enable automatic verification of model properties. Typical questions include reachability analysis and model checking against logics like LTL and CTL. However, these logics fall short when describing properties like non-interference and observational determinism that require simultaneous reasoning about multiple traces of the model and can thus only be expressed as hyperproperties. We introduce, to the best of our knowledge, the first HyperLTL model checker for Petri nets. The tool is fully integrated into the verification framework TAPAAL and we describe the semantics of the hyperlogic, present the tool's architecture and GUI, and evaluate the performance of the HyperLTL verification engine on two benchmarks of problems originating from the computer networking domain.

Problem

• Develops first HyperLTL model checker for Petri nets
• Enables verification of hyperproperties like non-interference
• Integrates tool into TAPAAL framework for distributed systems

Innovation

• First HyperLTL model checker for Petri nets
• Integrated into TAPAAL verification framework
• Evaluated on computer networking benchmarks