Communicating finite-state machine

In computer science, a communicating finite-state machine is a finite state machine labeled with "receive" and "send" operations over some alphabet of channels. They were introduced by Brand and Zafiropulo,[1] and can be used as a model of concurrent processes like Petri nets. Communicating finite state machines are used frequently for modeling a communication protocol since they make it possible to detect major protocol design errors, including boundedness, deadlocks, and unspecified receptions.[2]

The advantage of communicating finite state machines is that they make it possible to decide many properties in communication protocols, beyond the level of just detecting such properties. This advantage rules out the need for human assistance or restriction in generality.[3]

It has been proved with the introduction of the concept itself that when two finite state machines communicate with only one type of messages, boundedness, deadlocks, and unspecified reception state can be decided and identified while such is not the case when the machines communicate with two or more types of messages. Later, it has been further proved that when only one finite state machine communicates with single type of message while the communication of its partner is unconstrained, we can still decide and identify boundedness, deadlocks, and unspecified reception state.[4]

It has been further proved that when the message priority relation is empty, boundedness, deadlocks and unspecified reception state can be decided even under the condition in which there are two or more types of messages in the communication between finite state machines.[5]

Boundedness, deadlocks, and unspecified reception state are all decidable in polynomial time (which means that a particular problem can be solved in tractable, not infinite, amount of time) since the decision problems regarding them are nondeterministic logspace complete.[6]

Communicating finite state machines can be the most powerful in situations where the propagation delay is not negligible (so that several messages can be in transit at one time) and in situations where it is natural to describe the protocol parties and the communication medium as separate entities.[7]

Communicating Hierarchical State Machine

Hierarchical state machines are finite state machines whose states themselves can be other machines. Since a communicating finite state machine is characterized by concurrency, the most notable trait in a communicating hierarchical state machine is the coexistence of hierarchy and concurrency. This had been considered highly suitable as it signifies stronger interaction inside the machine.

However, it was proved that the coexistence of hierarchy and concurrency intrinsically costs language inclusion, language equivalence, and all of universality.[8]

References

  1. ↑ D. Brand and P. Zafiropulo. On communicating finite-state machines. Journal of the ACM, 30(2):323-342, 1983.
  2. ↑ Rosier, Louis E; Gouda, Mohamed G. Deciding Progress for a Class of Communicating Finite State Machines. Austin: University of Texas at Austin, 1983.
  3. ↑ D. Brand and P. Zafiropulo. On communicating finite-state machines. Journal of the ACM, 30(2):323-342, 1983.
  4. ↑ Rosier, Louis E; Gouda, Mohamed G. Deciding Progress for a Class of Communicating Finite State Machines. Austin: University of Texas at Austin, 1983.
  5. ↑ Gouda, Mohamed G; Rosier, Louis E. "Communicating finite state machines with priority channels," Automata, Languages and Programming. Antwerp: ICALP, 1984
  6. ↑ Rosier, Louis E; Gouda, Mohamed G. Deciding Progress for a Class of Communicating Finite State Machines. Austin: University of Texas at Austin, 1983.
  7. ↑ D. Brand and P. Zafiropulo. On communicating finite-state machines. Journal of the ACM, 30(2):323-342, 1983.
  8. ↑ Alur, Rajeev; Kannan, Sampath; Yannakakis, Mihalis. "Communicating hierarchical state machines," Automata, Languages and Programming. Prague: ICALP, 1999
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