Statistical probabilistic model checking with a focus on time-bounded properties

Probabilistic verification of continuous-time stochastic processes has received increasing attention in the model-checking community in the past 5 years, with a clear focus on developing numerical solution methods for model checking of continuous-time Markov chains. Numerical techniques tend to scale poorly with an increase in the size of the model (the "state space explosion problem"), however, and are feasible only for restricted classes of stochastic discrete-event systems. We present a statistical approach to probabilistic model checking, employing hypothesis testing and discrete-event simulation. Since we rely on statistical hypothesis testing, we cannot guarantee that the verification result is correct, but we can at least bound the probability of generating an incorrect answer to a verification problem. (C) 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.