A model checking technique for the verification of fuzzy control systems

Fuzzy control is well known as a powerful technique for designing and realizing control systems. However, statistical evidence for their correct behavior may be not enough, even when it is based on a large number of samplings. In order to provide a more systematic verification process, the cell-to-cell mapping technology has been used in a number of cases as a verification tool for fuzzy control systems and, more recently, to assess their optimality and robustness. However, cell-to-cell mapping is typically limited in the number of cells it can explore. To overcome this limitation, in this paper we show how model checking techniques may be instead used to verify the correct behavior of a fuzzy control system. To this end, we use a modified version of the Murphi verifier, which ease the modeling phase by allowing to use finite precision real numbers and external C functions. In this way, also already designed simulators may be used for the verification phase. With respect to the cell mapping technique, our approach appears to be complementary; indeed, it explores a much larger number of states, at the cost of being less informative on the global dynamic of the system. © 2005 IEEE.