Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Li, Jingyang, Song, Fu, Li, Guoqiang
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.14823
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866911518723932160
author Li, Jingyang
Song, Fu
Li, Guoqiang
author_facet Li, Jingyang
Song, Fu
Li, Guoqiang
contents Deep Neural Networks demonstrate exceptional performance but remain vulnerable to adversarial perturbations, necessitating formal verification for safety-critical deployment. To address the computational complexity of this task, researchers often employ abstraction-refinement techniques that iteratively tighten an over-approximated model. While structural methods utilize Counterexample-Guided Abstraction Refine- ment, state-of-the-art dataflow verifiers typically rely on Branch-and-Bound to refine numerical convex relaxations. However, current dataflow approaches operate with blind refinement processes that rely on static heuristics and fail to leverage specific diagnostic information from verification failures. In this work, we argue that Branch-and-Bound should be reformulated as a Dataflow CEGAR loop where the spurious counterexample serves as a precise witness to local abstraction errors. We propose DRG-BaB, a framework that introduces the Directional Relaxation Gap heuristic to prioritize branching on neurons actively contributing to falsification in the abstract domain. By deriving a closed-form spurious counterexample directly from linear bounds, our method transforms generic search into targeted refinement. Experiments on high-dimensional benchmarks demonstrate that this approach significantly reduces search tree size and verification time compared to established baselines.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_14823
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Counterexample Guided Branching via Directional Relaxation Analysis in Complete Neural Network Verification
Li, Jingyang
Song, Fu
Li, Guoqiang
Software Engineering
Deep Neural Networks demonstrate exceptional performance but remain vulnerable to adversarial perturbations, necessitating formal verification for safety-critical deployment. To address the computational complexity of this task, researchers often employ abstraction-refinement techniques that iteratively tighten an over-approximated model. While structural methods utilize Counterexample-Guided Abstraction Refine- ment, state-of-the-art dataflow verifiers typically rely on Branch-and-Bound to refine numerical convex relaxations. However, current dataflow approaches operate with blind refinement processes that rely on static heuristics and fail to leverage specific diagnostic information from verification failures. In this work, we argue that Branch-and-Bound should be reformulated as a Dataflow CEGAR loop where the spurious counterexample serves as a precise witness to local abstraction errors. We propose DRG-BaB, a framework that introduces the Directional Relaxation Gap heuristic to prioritize branching on neurons actively contributing to falsification in the abstract domain. By deriving a closed-form spurious counterexample directly from linear bounds, our method transforms generic search into targeted refinement. Experiments on high-dimensional benchmarks demonstrate that this approach significantly reduces search tree size and verification time compared to established baselines.
title Counterexample Guided Branching via Directional Relaxation Analysis in Complete Neural Network Verification
topic Software Engineering
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.14823