In this thesis we study Boolean functions from three different perspectives. First, we study the complex- ity of Boolean minimization for several classes of formulas with polynomially solvable SAT, and formulate sufficient conditions for a class which cause the minimization problem to drop at least one level in the polyno- mial hierarchy. Second, we study a class of matched CNFs for which SAT is trivial but minimization remains Σp 2 complete. We prove that every matched CNF has at least one equivalent prime and irredundant CNF that is also matched. We use this fact to prove the main result of this part, namely that for every matched CNF all clause minimal equivalent CNFs are also matched. Third, we look at propagation completeness - the property of a CNF that says that for every partial assignment all entailed literals can be discovered by unit propagation. We can extend every CNF to be propagation complete by adding empowering impli- cates to it. The main result of this section is a the proof of coNP completeness of the recognition problem for propagation complete CNFs. We also show that there exist CNFs to which an exponential number of empowering implicates have to be added to make them propagation complete.

Le développement de circuits électroniques et de systèmes logiciels critiques pour le ferroviaire ou l’avionique, par exemple, demande à être systématiquement associé à un processus de vérification formelle permettant de garantir l’exhaustivité des tests. L’approche formelle la plus répandue dans l’industrie est le Model Checking. Le succès de son adoption provient de deux caractéristiques : (i) son aspect automatique, (ii) sa capacité à produire un témoin (un scénario rejouable) lorsqu’un comportement indésirable est détecté, ce qui fournit une grande aide aux concepteurs pour corriger le problème. Néanmoins, la complexité grandissante des systèmes à vérifier est un réel défi pour le passage à l’échelle des techniques existantes. Pour y remédier, différents algorithmes de model checking (e.g., parcours symbolique des états du système, interpolation), diverses méthodes complémentaires (e.g., abstraction,génération automatique d’invariants), et de multiples procédures de décision(e.g., diagramme de décision, solveur SMT) sont envisageables.Dans cette thèse, nous nous intéressons plus particulièrement à l’induction temporelle.Il s’agit d’un algorithme de model checking très utilisé dans l’industrie pour vérifier les systèmes critiques. C’est également l’algorithme principal de l’outil développé au sein de l’entreprise Safe River, entreprise dans laquelle cette thèse a été effectuée. Plus précisément, l’induction temporelle combine deux techniques :(i) BMC (Bounded Model Checking), une méthode très efficace pour la détection debugs dans un système (ii) k-induction, une méthode ajoutant un critère de terminaison à BMC lorsque le système n’admet pas de bug. Ces deux techniques génèrent des formules logiques propositionnelles pour lesquelles il faut en déterminer la satisfaisabilité.Pour se faire, nous utilisons un solveur SAT, c’est-à-dire une procédure de décision qui détermine si une telle formule admet une solution.L’originalité des travaux proposés dans cette thèse repose en grande partie sur la volonté de renforcer la collaboration entre le solveur SAT et le model checker.Nos efforts visent à accroître l’interconnexion de ces deux modules en exploitant la structure haut niveau du problème. Nous avons alors défini des méthodes profitant de la structure symétrique des formules. Cette structure apparaît lors du dépliage successif de la relation de transition, et nous permet de dupliquer les clauses ou encore de déplier les transitions dans différentes directions (i.e., avant ou arrière). Nous avons aussi pu instaurer une communication entre le solveur SAT et le model checker permettant de : (i) simplifier la représentation au niveau du model checker grâce à des informations déduites par le solveur, et (ii) aider le solveur lors de la résolution grâce aux simplifications effectuées sur la représentation haut niveau. Une autre contribution importante de cette thèse est l’expérimentation des algorithmes proposées. Cela se concrétise par l’implémentation d’un model checker prenant en entrée des modèles AIG (And-Inverter Graph) dans lequel nous avons pu évaluer l’efficacité de nos différentes méthodes. / The design of electronic circuits and safety-critical software systems in railway or avionic domains for instance, is usually associated with a formal verification process. More precisely, test methods for which it is hard to show completeness are combined with approaches that are complete by definition. Model Checking is one of those approaches and is probably the most prevalent in industry. Reasons of its success are mainly due to two characteristics, namely: (i) its fully automatic aspect, and (ii) its ability to produce a short execution trace of undesired behaviors, which is very helpful for designers to fix the issues. However, the increasing complexity of systems to be verified is a real challenge for the scalability of existing techniques. To tackle this challenge, different model checking algorithms (e.g., symbolic model checking, interpolation), various complementary methods (e.g., abstraction, automatic generation of invariants) and multiple decision procedures (e.g., decision diagram, SMT solver) can be considered. In this thesis, we particularly focus on temporal induction. It is a model checking algorithm widely used in the industry to check safety-critical systems. This is also the core algorithm of the tool developed within SafeRiver, company in which this thesis was carried out. More precisely, temporal induction consists of a combination of BMC (Bounded Model Checking) and k-induction. BMC is a very efficient bugfinding method. While k-induction adds a termination criterion to BMC when the system does not admit bugs. These two techniques generate formulas for which it is necessary to determine their satisfiability. To this end, we use a SAT solver as a decision procedure to determine whether a propositional formula has a solution. The main contribution of this thesis aims to strengthen the collaboration between the SAT solver and the model checker. The improvements proposed mainly focus on increasing the interconnections of these two modules by exploiting the high-level structure of the problem.We have therefore defined several methods taking advantage of the symmetrical structure of the formulas. This structure emerges during the successive unfolding of the transition relation, and allows us to duplicate clauses or even unroll the transitions in different directions (i.e., forward or backward). We also established a communication between the solver and the model checker, which has for purpose to: (i) simplify the model checker representation using the information inferred by the solver, and (ii) assist the solver during resolution with simplifications performed on the high-level representation. Another important contribution of this thesis is the empirical evaluation of the proposed algorithms on well-established benchmarks. This is achieved concretely via the implementation of a model checker taking AIG (And-Inverter Graph) as input, from which we were able to evaluate the effectiveness of our algorithms.

Ce travail porte sur la vérification de composants logiciels dans les systèmes embarqués critiques avioniques. Les conséquences d’une erreur dans de tels systèmes pouvant s'avérer catastrophiques, il se doivent de respecter leur spécification. La vérification formelle tend à prouver cette adéquation si elle est vraie, ou à produire un contre-exemple si elle ne l’est pas. Les méthodes actuelles ne sont pas capable de traiter les les systèmes industriels. La découverte d’informations supplémentaires (invariants) sur le système permet de réduire l’espace de recherche afin de renforcer l’objectif de preuve: les informations découvertes sont suffisantes pour conclure “facilement”. Nous définissons une architecture parallèle permettant à des méthodes de découverte d’invariants de collaborer autour d’un moteur de kinduction. Dans ce contexte nous proposons HullQe, une nouvelle heuristique de génération d’invariants potentiels combinant un calcul de pré-image par élimination de quantificateurs et des calculs d’enveloppes convexes. Nous montrons que HullQe est capable, automatiquement, de renforcer des objectifs de preuve correspondant à la vérification de patrons de conception courants en avionique. Pour autant que nous sachions, les méthodes actuelles sont incapables de conclure sur ces problèmes. Nous détaillons nos améliorations de l’algorithme d’élimination de quantificateurs de Monniaux afin d’assurer le passage à l’échelle sur nos systèmes. Notre framework formel Stuff est une implémentation de notre architecture parallèle composée de HullQe, d'une technique de découverte d’invariants basée sur des templates, et d'une généralisation de PDR à l’arithmétique. / This work studies the verification of software components in avionics critical embedded systems. As the failure of suchsystems can have catastrophic consequences, it is mandatory to make sure they are consistent with their specification.Formal verification consists in proving that a system respects its specification if it does, or to produce a counterexample if itdoes not. Current methods are unable to handle the verification problems stemming from realistic systems. Discoveringadditional information (invariants) on the system can however restrict the search space enough to strengthen the proofobjective: the information discovered allow to "easily" reach a conclusion. We define a parallel architecture for invariantdiscovery methods allowing them to collaborate around a k-induction engine. In this context we propose a new heuristic forthe generation of potential invariants by combining an iterated preimage calculus by quantifier elimination with convexhull computations, called HullQe. We show that HullQe is able to automatically strengthen proof objectives correspondingto safety properties on widespread design patterns in our field. To the best of our knowledge, these systems elude currenttechniques. We also detail our improvements to the quantifier elimination algorithm by David Monniaux in 2008, so that itscales to computing preimages on our systems. Our formal framework Stuff is an implementation of the parallel architecturewe propose in which we implemented not only HullQe, but also a template-based invariant discovery technique, and ageneralisation to Property Directed Reachability to linear real arithmetic and integer octagons.

Este trabalho estuda o problema da Satisfazibilidade Probabilística (PSAT), revendo a sua solução via programação linear, além de propor novos algoritmos para resolvê-lo através da redução ao SAT. Construímos uma redução polinomial do PSAT para o SAT, chamada de Redução Canônica, codificando operações da aritmética racional em bits, como variáveis lógicas. Analisamos a complexidade computacional dessa redução e propomos uma Redução Canônica de Precisão Limitada para contornar tal complexidade. Apresentamos uma Redução de Turing do PSAT ao SAT, baseada no algoritmo Simplex e na Forma Normal Atômica que introduzimos. Sugerimos modificações em tal redução em busca de eficiência computacional. Por fim, implementamos essas reduções a m de investigar o perl de complexidade do PSAT, observamos o fenômeno de transição de fase e discutimos as condições para sua detecção. / This work studies the Probabilistic Satisfiability problem (PSAT), reviewing its solution through linear programming, and proposing new algorithms to solve it. We construct a polynomial many-to-one reduction from PSAT to SAT, called Canonical Reduction, codifying rational arithmetic operations into bits, as logical variables. We analyze the computational complexity of this reduction and we propose a Limited Precision Canonical Reduction to reduce such complexity. We present a Turing Reduction from PSAT to SAT, based on the Simplex algorithm and the Atomic Normal Form we introduced. We suggest modifications in such reduction looking for computational eficiency. Finally, we implement these reductions in order to investigate the complexity profile of PSAT, the phase transition phenomenom is observed and the conditions for its detection are discussed.

Les investigations présentées dans ce mémoire de doctorat portent sur la synthèse d’antennes à éléments parasites à polarisation circulaire. Une stratégie de conception rapide et efficace est développée et mise en oeuvre pour synthétiser des diagrammes de rayonnement à multiples objectifs. Des éléments parasites peuvent ainsi être associés à d’autres antennes pour en améliorer les performances. Deux antennes ont été imaginées. Un premier démonstrateur d’AEP directive à polarisation circulaire et à bande élargie a été conçu. Ce démonstrateur qui se compose de l’association de 18 dipôles parasites avec une antenne spirale logarithmique a été fabriqué et mesuré. Un second prototype d’AEP a été inventé dans le cadre d’un projet spatiale «Antenne Isoflux Bande-X pour nano-satellite». L’antenne compacte a été développée pour supporter les débits de transmission des futures missions des plateformes Nano-Satellite « Cube-Sat ». Ce prototype associe une antenne patch avec une distribution de 12 dipôles parasites pour réaliser une couverture Isoflux en polarisation circulaire. Cette antenne a été mesurée sur sa plateforme d’accueil. / The investigations presented in this thesis propose the synthesis of circularly polarized antennas with parasitic elements. An innovative and effective strategy is developed and implemented to synthesize a multi-objective radiation patterns. Parasitic elements can also be associated with other antennas to improve the performances. Two antennas were suggested. The first one represents a wide band circularly polarized directive antenna with parasitic elements. This demonstrator consists of the combination of 18 parasitic dipoles with a logarithmic spiral antenna; this antenna was manufactured and measured. The second antenna is a part of a space project « Isoflux X-Band antenna for Nano-Satellite». This compact antenna has been developed to support transmission rates for future mission.

Cette thèse porte sur la résolution du problème d'optimisation Maximum Satisfiability (Max-SAT). Nous y étudions en particulier les mécanismes liés à la détection et à la transformation des sous-ensembles inconsistants par la règle de la max-résolution. Dans le contexte des solveurs de type séparation et évaluation, nous présentons plusieurs contributions liées au calcul de la borne inférieure. Cela va du schéma d'application de la propagation unitaire utilisé pour détecter les sous-ensembles inconsistants à l'extension des critères d'apprentissage et à l'évaluation de l'impact des transformations par max-résolution sur l'efficacité des solveurs. Nos contributions ont permis l'élaboration d'un nouvel outil de résolution compétitif avec les meilleurs solveurs de l'état de l'art. Elles permettent également de mieux comprendre le fonctionnement des méthodes de type séparation et évaluation et apportent des éléments théoriques pouvant expliquer l'efficacité et les limites des solveurs existants. Cela ouvre de nouvelles perspectives d'amélioration, en particulier sur l'augmentation de l'apprentissage et la prise en compte de la structure interne des instances. Nous présentons également un exemple d'utilisation de la règle de la max-résolution dans un algorithme de recherche local. / This PhD thesis is about solving the Maximum Satisfiability (Max-SAT) problem. We study the mechanisms related to the detection and transformations of the inconsistent subsets by the max-resolution rule. In the context of the branch and bound (BnB) algorithms, we present several contributions related to the lower bound computation. They range from the study of the unit propagation scheme used to detect inconsistent subsets to the extension of the learning criteria and to the evaluation of the impact of the max-resolution transformations on the BnB solvers efficiency. Thanks to our contributions, we have implemented a new solver which is competitive with the state of art ones. We give insights allowing a better understanding of the behavior of BnB solvers as well as theoretical elements which contribute to explain the efficiency of these solvers and their limits. It opens new development perspectives on the learning mechanisms used by BnB solvers which may lead to a better consideration of the instances structural properties. We also present an example of integration of the max-resolution inference rule in a local search algorithm.

L'objectif de cette thèse est l'assistance à la génération de tests et à l'animation de spécifications orientées objet. Nous cherchons en particulier à profiter de l'état de l'art des techniques de résolution de satisfaisabilité en utilisant une représentation appropriée des données orientées objet. Alors que la génération automatique de cas de tests recherche un large ensemble de valeurs à fournir en entrée d'une application, l’animation de spécifications effectue les calculs qui sont conformes à une spécification à partir de valeurs fournies par l'utilisateur. L'animation est une technique importante pour la validation des spécifications.Comme fondement de ce travail, nous présentons des clarifications et une formalisation partielle du langage de spécification OCL (Object Constraint Language) ainsi que quelques extensions, afin de permettre la génération de tests et l'animation à partir de spécifications OCL.Pour la génération de tests, nous avons implémenté plusieurs améliorations à HOL-TestGen, outil basé sur le démonstrateur de théorème Isabelle, qui engendre des tests à partir de spécifications en Logique d’Ordre Supérieure (Higher-Order Logic ou HOL). Nous montrons comment des solveurs SMT peuvent être utilisés pour résoudre différents types de contraintes en HOL et nous présentons une approche modulaire de raisonnement par cas pour dériver des cas de tests. Cette dernière approche facilite l'introduction de règles de decomposition par cas qui sont adaptées aux spécifications orientées objet.Pour l'animation de spécifications, nous avons développé OCLexec, outil d'animation de spécifications en OCL. A partir de contrats de fonctions OCLexec produit les implémentations Java correspondantes qui appellent un solveur de contraintes SMT lors de leur exécution. / The goal of this thesis is the development of support for test generation and animation based on object-oriented specifications. We aim particularly to take advantage of state-of-the-art satisfiability solving techniques by using an appropriate representation of object-oriented data. While automated test generation seeks a large set of data to execute an implementation on, animation performs computations that comply with a specification based on user-provided input data. Animation is a valuable technique for validating specifications.As a foundation of this work, we present clarifications and a partial formalization of the Object Constraint Language (OCL) as well as some extensions in order to allow for test generation and animation based on OCL specifications.For test generation, we have implemented several enhancements to HOL-TestGen, a tool built on top of the Isabelle theorem proving system that generates tests from specifications in Higher-Order Logic (HOL). We show how SMT solvers can be used to solve various types of constraints in HOL and present a modular approach to case splitting for deriving test cases. The latter facilitates the introduction of splitting rules that are tailored to object-oriented specifications.For animation, we implemented the tool OCLexec for animating OCL specifications. OCLexec generates from operation contracts corresponding Java implementations that call an SMT-based constraint solver at runtime.

This project studied two different ways of imposing boundary conditions weakly with the finite difference summation-by-parts (SBP) operators. These operators were combined with the boundary handling methods of simultaneous-approximation-terms (SAT) and the Projection to impose homogeneous Neumann and Dirichlet boundary conditions. The convergence rate of both methods was analyzed for different boundary conditions for the one-dimensional (1D) Schrödinger equation, without potential, which resulted in both methods performing similarly. A multi-block discretization was then implemented and different combinations of SBP-SAT and SBP-Projection were applied to impose inner boundary conditions of continuity between the blocks. A convergence study of the different methods of imposing the inner BC:s was conducted for the 1D Schrödinger equation without potential. The resulting convergence was the same for all methods and it was concluded that they performed similarly. Methods involving SBP-Projection had the slight advantage of faster computation time. Finally, the 1D Gross-Pitaevskii equation (GPE) and the 1D Schrödinger equation were analyzed with a step potential. The waves propagating towards the potential barrier were in both cases partially transmitted and partially reflected. The waves simulated with the Schrödinger equation dispersed, while the solitons simulated with the GPE kept their shape due to the equations reinforcing non-linear term. The bright soliton was partly transmitted and partly reflected. The dark soliton was either totally reflected or totally transmitted.

This thesis focuses on the design and implementation of an application involving the principles of DNA computing simulation for solving some selected problems. DNA computing represents an unconventional computing paradigm that is totally different from the concept of electronic computers. The main idea of DNA computing is to interpret the DNA as a medium for performing computation. Despite the fact, that DNA reactions are slower than operations performed on computers, they may provide some promising features in the future. The DNA operations are based on two important aspects: massive parallelism and principle of complementarity. There are many important problems for which there is no algorithm that would be able to solve the problem in a polynomial time using conventional computers. Therefore, the solutions of such problems are searched by exploring the entire state space. In this case the massive parallelism of the DNA operations becomes very important in order to reduce the complexity of finding a solution.

Boolean satisfiability (SAT) is the problem of determining whether there exists an assignment of the Boolean variables to the truth values such that a given Boolean formula evaluates to true. SAT was the first example of an NP-complete problem. Only two decades ago SAT was mainly considered as of a theoretical interest. Nowadays, the picture is very different. SAT solving becomes mature and is a successful approach for tackling a large number of applications, ranging from artificial intelligence to industrial hardware design and verification. SAT solving consists of encodings and solvers. In order to benefit from the tremendous advances in the development of solvers, one must first encode the original problems into SAT instances. These encodings should not only be easily generated, but should also be efficiently processed by SAT solvers. Furthermore, an increasing number of practical applications in computer science can be expressed as constraint satisfaction problems (CSPs). However, encoding a CSP to SAT is currently regarded as more of an art than a science, and choosing an appropriate encoding is considered as important as choosing an algorithm. Moreover, it is much easier and more efficient to benefit from highly optimized state-of-the-art SAT solvers than to develop specialized tools from scratch. Hence, finding appropriate SAT encodings of CSPs is one of the most fascinating challenges for solving problems by SAT. This thesis studies SAT encodings of CSPs and aims at: 1) conducting a comprehensively profound study of SAT encodings of CSPs by separately investigating encodings of CSP domains and constraints; 2) proposing new SAT encodings of CSP domains; 3) proposing new SAT encoding of the at-most-one constraint, which is essential for encoding CSP variables; 4) introducing the redundant encoding and the hybrid encoding that aim to benefit from both two efficient and common SAT encodings (i.e., the sparse and order encodings) by using the channeling constraint (a term used in Constraint Programming) for SAT; and 5) revealing interesting guidelines on how to choose an appropriate SAT encoding in the way that one can exploit the availability of many efficient SAT solvers to solve CSPs efficiently and effectively. Experiments show that the proposed encodings and guidelines improve the state-of-the-art SAT encodings of CSPs.