Trustworthy Systems

Five determinisation algorithms

Authors

Rob van Glabbeek and Bas Ploeger

NICTA

UNSW

Eindhoven University of Technology

Abstract

Determinisation of nondeterministic finite automata is a well-studied problem that plays an important role in compiler theory and system verification. In the latter field, one often encounters automata consisting of millions or even billions of states. On such input, the memory usage of analysis tools becomes the major bottleneck. In this paper we present several determinisation algorithms, all variants of the well-known subset construction, that aim to reduce memory usage and produce smaller output automata. One of them produces automata that are already minimal. We apply our algorithms to determinise automata that describe the possible sequences appearing after a fixed-length run of cellular automaton 110, and obtain a significant improvement in both memory and time efficiency.

BibTeX Entry

  @inproceedings{vanGlabbeek_Ploeger_08_2,
    address          = {San Francisco},
    author           = {van Glabbeek, Robert and Ploeger, Bas},
    booktitle        = {13th International Conference on Implementation and Application of Automata},
    editor           = {{O.H. Ibarra \& B. Ravikumar}},
    issn             = {0302-9743},
    keywords         = {finite automata, determinisation algorithms, memory usage, cellular automaton 110},
    month            = jul,
    pages            = {161--170},
    paperurl         = {https://trustworthy.systems/publications/nicta_full_text/817.pdf},
    publisher        = {Springer},
    title            = {Five determinisation algorithms},
    year             = {2008}
  }

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