What's decidable about weighted automata?

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Weighted automata map input words to values, and have numerous applications in computer science. A result by Krob from the 90s implies that the universality problem is decidable for weighted automata over the tropical semiring with weights in N∪{∞} and is undecidable when the weights are in Z∪{∞}. We continue the study of the borders of decidability in weighted automata over the tropical semiring. We give a complete picture of the decidability and complexity of various decision problems for them, including non-emptiness, universality, equality, and containment. For the undecidability results, we provide direct proofs, which stay in the terrain of state machines. This enables us to tighten the results and apply them to a very simple class of automata. In addition, we provide a toolbox of algorithms and techniques for weighted automata, on top of which we establish the complexity bounds.

Original languageEnglish
Article number104651
Pages (from-to)1-20
Number of pages20
JournalInformation and Computation
Volume282
DOIs
StatePublished - Jan 2022

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Theoretical Computer Science
  • Information Systems
  • Computer Science Applications
  • Computational Theory and Mathematics

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