Matthias Volk

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Address
Room 4205
Ahornstraße 55
D-52074 Aachen
Phone
+49 241 80 21212

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Please see my personal website.


Research

I am a PhD student at the Software Modeling and Verification Group (MOVES) headed by Professor J.-P. Katoen since December 2015. I was a doctoral researcher (Stipendiat) within the Research Training Group UnRAVeL since 2017. Since 2020 I am part of the ERC research project FRAPPANT.
My research interests include:

  • Analysis of dynamic fault trees (DFTs)
  • Verifiying fault trees for railway safety (see UnRAVeL project AP4)
  • Model checking of (parametric) probabilistic systems

Tool support

I am actively involved in the development of the following tools:

  • The probabilistic model checker Storm and its python bindings stormpy
  • The python bindings pycarl for the arithmetic library CArL
  • The parameter synthesis framework for parametric Markov chains PROPhESY

Bachelor/Master Theses

I am always looking forward to work with students. If you are looking for a thesis in one of the areas above, do not hesitate to contact me and we can discuss current thesis topics. Some ideas are also given in our list of open topics.

Currently, I am supervising the following theses:

  • Daniel Basgöze, Dynamic Fault Tree Analysis using Binary Decision Diagrams, Bachelor thesis (together with Shahid Khan)
  • Markus Miliats, Analyzing critical components in Dynamic Fault Trees, Bachelor thesis

In the past, I have been supervising the following theses:

Teaching

I am currently involved in the following teaching activities:

Past teaching activities:

Awards

Our paper A DFT Modeling Approach for Infrastructure Reliability Analysis of Railway Station Areas (joint work with Norman Weik, Joost-Pieter Katoen and Nils Nießen) won the Best Paper Award at the 24th International Conference on Formal Methods for Industrial Critical Systems (FMICS) in Amsterdam in 2019. The paper presents a model of railway station areas in terms of dynamic fault trees (DFTs). The DFT model is used to assess the reliability of the infrastructure elements in the station area and the influence of infrastructure failures on the routability options of trains.

Our paper Automated Fine Tuning of Probabilistic Self-Stabilizing Algorithms (joint work with Saba Aflaki, Borzoo Bonakdarpour, Joost-Pieter Katoen and Arne Storjohann) won the Prof. C.V. Ramamoorthy Best Paper Award at the 36th IEEE Int. Symposium on Reliable Distributed Systems (SRDS) in Hongkong in 2017. The paper presents automated techniques to find the probability distribution that achieves minimum average recovery time for randomized distributed self-stabilizing algorithms.

2022
DOI fulltext PDF [bibtex]
@article{D2022,
title = {DFT modeling approach for operational risk assessment of railway infrastructure},
author = {Norman Weik and Matthias Volk and Joost-Pieter Katoen and Nils Nießen},
publisher = {Springer},
journal = {International journal on software tools for technology transfer},
volume = {24(3)},
pages = {pages 331-350},
type = {Journal Article},
year = {2022},
doi = {10.1007/s10009-022-00652-4},
url = { https://publications.rwth-aachen.de/record/844073},
}×
[issue]
Norman Weik, Matthias Volk, Joost-Pieter Katoen, Nils Nießen. DFT modeling approach for operational risk assessment of railway infrastructure, International journal on software tools for technology transfer 24 (3), pages 331-350, Springer, 2022.
DOI [bibtex]
@conference{BSBEASDFT2022,
title = {BDDs Strike Back: Efficient Analysis of Static and Dynamic Fault Trees},
author = {Daniel Basgöze and Matthias Volk and Joost-Pieter Katoen and Shahid Khan and Marielle Stoelinga},
publisher = {Springer},
booktitle = {LNCS},
volume = {13260},
pages = {713-732},
type = {Conference Paper},
year = {2022},
doi = {10.1007/978-3-031-06773-0_38},
url = { https://publications.rwth-aachen.de/record/951563},
}×
[issue]
Daniel Basgöze, Matthias Volk, Joost-Pieter Katoen, Shahid Khan, Marielle Stoelinga. BDDs Strike Back: Efficient Analysis of Static and Dynamic Fault Trees, 14. International Symposium NASA Formal Methods (NFM 2022), Volume 13260 of LNCS, 713-732, Springer, 2022.
DOI fulltext PDF [bibtex]
@phdthesis{D2022,
title = {Dynamic fault trees: semantics, analysis and applications},
author = {Matthias Volk},
publisher = {RWTH Aachen University},
institution = {RWTH Aachen University},
pages = {1 Online-Ressource : Illustrationen},
type = {PhD Thesis},
year = {2022},
doi = {10.18154/RWTH-2023-04092},
url = { https://publications.rwth-aachen.de/record/956330},
}×
[issue]
Matthias Volk. Dynamic fault trees: semantics, analysis and applications, PhD Thesis, RWTH Aachen University, 1 Online-Ressource : Illustrationen, RWTH Aachen University, 2022.
2021
DOI fulltext PDF [bibtex]
@article{TS2021,
title = {The probabilistic model checker STORM},
author = {Hans Christian Hensel and Sebastian Junges and Joost-Pieter Katoen and Tim Quatmann and Matthias Volk},
publisher = {Springer},
journal = {International journal on software tools for technology transfer},
volume = {24(4)},
pages = {pages 589-610},
type = {Journal Article},
year = {2021},
doi = {10.1007/s10009-021-00633-z},
url = { https://publications.rwth-aachen.de/record/822059},
}×
[issue]
Hans Christian Hensel, Sebastian Junges, Joost-Pieter Katoen, Tim Quatmann, Matthias Volk. The probabilistic model checker STORM, International journal on software tools for technology transfer 24 (4), pages 589-610, Springer, 2021.
DOI [bibtex]
@conference{MCMFLF2021,
title = {Model Checking the Multi-Formalism Language FIGARO},
author = {Shahid Khan and Matthias Volk and Joost-Pieter Katoen and Alexis Braibant and Marc Bouissou},
publisher = {IEEE},
pages = {463-470},
type = {Conference Paper},
year = {2021},
doi = {10.1109/DSN48987.2021.00056},
url = { https://publications.rwth-aachen.de/record/835145},
}×
[issue]
Shahid Khan, Matthias Volk, Joost-Pieter Katoen, Alexis Braibant, Marc Bouissou. Model Checking the Multi-Formalism Language FIGARO, 51. Annual IEEE/IFIP International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks (DSN), 463-470, IEEE, 2021.
DOI fulltext PDF [bibtex]
@article{S2021,
title = {Synthesizing optimal bias in randomized self-stabilization},
author = {Matthias Volk and Borzoo Bonakdarpour and Joost-Pieter Katoen and Saba Aflaki},
publisher = {Springer},
journal = {Distributed computing},
volume = {35(1)},
pages = {pages 37-57},
type = {Journal Article},
year = {2021},
doi = {10.1007/s00446-021-00408-4},
url = { https://publications.rwth-aachen.de/record/835189},
}×
[issue]
Matthias Volk, Borzoo Bonakdarpour, Joost-Pieter Katoen, Saba Aflaki. Synthesizing optimal bias in randomized self-stabilization, Distributed computing 35 (1), pages 37-57, Springer, 2021.
DOI [bibtex]
@conference{MAFSVDFT2021,
title = {Modelling and Analysis of Fire Sprinklers by Verifying Dynamic Fault Trees},
author = {Shahid Khan and Joost-Pieter Katoen and Matthias Volk and Ahmad Zafar and Falak Sher},
publisher = {IEEE},
type = {Conference Paper},
year = {2021},
doi = {10.1109/LADC53747.2021.9672579},
url = { https://publications.rwth-aachen.de/record/841297},
}×
[issue]
Shahid Khan, Joost-Pieter Katoen, Matthias Volk, Ahmad Zafar, Falak Sher. Modelling and Analysis of Fire Sprinklers by Verifying Dynamic Fault Trees, 10. Latin-American Symposium on Dependable Computing (LADC), IEEE, 2021.
DOI [bibtex]
@conference{SRALV2021,
title = {Scalable Reliability Analysis by Lazy Verification},
author = {Shahid Khan and Joost-Pieter Katoen and Matthias Volk and Marc Bouissou},
publisher = {Springer},
booktitle = {LNCS},
volume = {12673, Programming and software engineering},
pages = {180-197},
type = {Conference Paper},
year = {2021},
doi = {10.1007/978-3-030-76384-8_12},
url = { https://publications.rwth-aachen.de/record/841298},
}×
[issue]
Shahid Khan, Joost-Pieter Katoen, Matthias Volk, Marc Bouissou. Scalable Reliability Analysis by Lazy Verification, 13. NASA Formal Methods Symposium (NFM 2021), Volume 12673, Programming and software engineering of LNCS, 180-197, Springer, 2021.
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