Formal Verification of Communication Protocols for Wireless Networks

We live in an interconnected word, a world where people cannot afford living isolated anymore. In a few years wireless Internet access evolved form a matter of convenience to a real need for some people. The number and variety of available applications for this environment is overwhelming and the number of applications grows in a daily bases. These systems must be validated before being available to the users. However, in the development of applications for wireless medium designers normally just ignore the medium as a relevant factor to be considered. Not because it does not affect their application, but simply because they do not have any simple, yet efficient, method to address the particularities of the wireless medium. Neither simulations nor testbed implementations can ensure the correctness of a communication protocol. Observing this, some researchers turned to formal verification as a way to guarantee that a given protocol, or application, presents a specific characteristic. This book presents a review of the available techniques and proposes a new methodology for formal verification of communication protocols for wireless networks.