Memory-dependent abstractions of stochastic systems through the lens of transfer operators

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Banse, Adrien, Delimpaltadakis, Giannis, Laurenti, Luca, Mazo Jr., Manuel, Jungers, Raphaël M.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Banse, Adrien
Delimpaltadakis, Giannis
Laurenti, Luca
Mazo Jr., Manuel
Jungers, Raphaël M.
author_facet Banse, Adrien
Delimpaltadakis, Giannis
Laurenti, Luca
Mazo Jr., Manuel
Jungers, Raphaël M.
contents With the increasing ubiquity of safety-critical autonomous systems operating in uncertain environments, there is a need for mathematical methods for formal verification of stochastic models. Towards formally verifying properties of stochastic systems, methods based on discrete, finite Markov approximations -- abstractions -- thereof have surged in recent years. These are found in contexts where: either a) one only has partial, discrete observations of the underlying continuous stochastic process, or b) the original system is too complex to analyze, so one partitions the continuous state-space of the original system to construct a handleable, finite-state model thereof. In both cases, the abstraction is an approximation of the discrete stochastic process that arises precisely from the discretization of the underlying continuous process. The fact that the abstraction is Markov and the discrete process is not (even though the original one is) leads to approximation errors. Towards accounting for non-Markovianity, we introduce memory-dependent abstractions for stochastic systems, capturing dynamics with memory effects. Our contribution is twofold. First, we provide a formalism for memory-dependent abstractions based on transfer operators. Second, we quantify the approximation error by upper bounding the total variation distance between the true continuous state distribution and its discrete approximation.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2502_04240
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Memory-dependent abstractions of stochastic systems through the lens of transfer operators
Banse, Adrien
Delimpaltadakis, Giannis
Laurenti, Luca
Mazo Jr., Manuel
Jungers, Raphaël M.
Systems and Control
With the increasing ubiquity of safety-critical autonomous systems operating in uncertain environments, there is a need for mathematical methods for formal verification of stochastic models. Towards formally verifying properties of stochastic systems, methods based on discrete, finite Markov approximations -- abstractions -- thereof have surged in recent years. These are found in contexts where: either a) one only has partial, discrete observations of the underlying continuous stochastic process, or b) the original system is too complex to analyze, so one partitions the continuous state-space of the original system to construct a handleable, finite-state model thereof. In both cases, the abstraction is an approximation of the discrete stochastic process that arises precisely from the discretization of the underlying continuous process. The fact that the abstraction is Markov and the discrete process is not (even though the original one is) leads to approximation errors. Towards accounting for non-Markovianity, we introduce memory-dependent abstractions for stochastic systems, capturing dynamics with memory effects. Our contribution is twofold. First, we provide a formalism for memory-dependent abstractions based on transfer operators. Second, we quantify the approximation error by upper bounding the total variation distance between the true continuous state distribution and its discrete approximation.
title Memory-dependent abstractions of stochastic systems through the lens of transfer operators
topic Systems and Control
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.04240