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Simulation Preorder




Intuitively, a system simulates another system if it can match all of its moves.

The basic definition relates states within one transition system, but this is easily adapted to relate two separate transition systems by building a system consisting of the disjoint union of the corresponding components.


FORMAL DEFINITION


Given a Labelled State Transition System (S, Λ, →), a ''simulation'' Relation is a Binary Relation R over S (i.e. R ⊆ S × S) such that for every pair of elements p, q ∈ S, if (p,q)∈ R then for all α ∈ Λ, and for all p' ∈ S,

:
\begin{matrix}
& \alpha & \
p & ightarrow & p' \
\end{matrix}


implies that there is a q' ∈ S such that

:
\begin{matrix}
& \alpha & \
q & ightarrow & q' \
\end{matrix}


and (p',q') ∈ R.

Given two states p and q in S, q ''simulates'' p, written p ≤ q if there is a simulation R such that (p, q) ∈ R. In such a case, p and q are said to be ''similar'' and ≤ is called the ''similarity'' relation.

The similarity relation ≤ is a Preorder . Furthermore, it is the largest simulation relation over a given transition system.


SIMILARITY OF SEPARATE TRANSITION SYSTEMS


When comparing two different transition systems (S', Λ', →') and (S' ', Λ' ', →' '), the basic notions of simulation and similarity can be used by forming the disjoint composition of the two machines, (S, Λ, →) with S = S' ∪ S' ', Λ = Λ' ∪ Λ' ' and → = →' ∪ →' ', where ∪ is the Disjoint Union operator between sets.


SEE ALSO