Improved reachability analysis in DTMC via divide and conquer

Abstract

Discrete Time Markov Chains (DTMCs) are widely used to model probabilistic systems in many domains, such as biology, network and communication protocols. There are two main approaches for probability reachability analysis of DTMCs, i.e., solving linear equations or using value iteration. However, both approaches have drawbacks. On one hand, solving linear equations can generate accurate results, but it can be only applied to relatively small models. On the other hand, value iteration is more scalable, but often suffers from slow convergence. Furthermore, it is unclear how to parallelize (i.e., taking advantage of multi-cores or distributed computers) these two approaches. In this work, we propose a divide-and-conquer approach to eliminate loops in DTMC and hereby speed up probabilistic reachability analysis. A DTMC is separated into several partitions according to our proposed cutting criteria. Each partition is then solved by Gauss-Jordan elimination effectively and the state space is reduced afterwards. This divide and conquer algorithm will continue until there is no loop existing in the system. Experiments are conducted to demonstrate that our approach can generate accurate results, avoid the slow convergence problems and handle larger models.