SPECIFICATION AND VERIFICATION OF A PARAMETRIC HANDOVER PROCEDURE USING TLA
Tatjana Kapus · Journal of Circuits Systems and Computers · 2006
In mobile systems, some nodes link dynamically through different channels at different times. The π-calculus is a popular process algebra for specification and verification of systems with dynamic linking and synchronous, rendezvous message passing communication of component processes. Dynamic linking can be elegantly specified in it by sending channels to be used for further communication as messages. However, in order to be able to use the π-calculus, one has to learn its process-algebraic concepts and laws. On the other hand, specification and verification in the Temporal Logic of Actions (TLA) is almost entirely based on ordinary mathematics (i.e., first-order predicate logic, set theory, etc.). Therefore, this paper proposes a TLA approach to the specification and verification of systems with synchronous communication and dynamic linking similar to the π-calculus one. It is presented with help of a TLA specification and verification of a parametric mobile network handover procedure which has previously been specified with the π-calculus. In fact, TLA+ is used as the specification language, thus achieving completely formal specifications.