# 4.1. Modeling with Momba¶

Momba is centered around the JANI model interchange format. JANI is a well-established standard in the quantitative model checking community and is supported by a variety of tools. A JANI model is a network of interacting automata. These automata are annotated with variables and can comprise non-deterministic choices, probabilistic behavior, continuous dynamics, as well as real-time behavior. For the purpose of this tutorial, we are only using a subset of these features, namely non-deterministic choices and probabilistic behavior.

## 4.1.1. Example: Parking Lot¶

To get a first intuition, how JANI models work, consider the example of a parking lot with a ticket machine (see Fig. 4.1). The amount of parking spots in the parking lot is of course finite (100 in the following), hence, the ticket machine must not give out more tickets than there are free spaces. When the parking lot is full, a car must leave before a new ticket can be issued. To issue a ticket, the driver has to push a button. After pushing the button, the gate will open such that the driver can enter the parking lot. After entering the parking lot, the gate closes again. As you can see from the picture, the ticket machine is quite old, thus the button fails 10% of the time.

Fig. 4.1 Parking lot ticket machine and gate.

Fig. 4.2 shows a JANI automaton modeling the parking lot and ticket machine. This automaton has two locations, closed and open, corresponding to the gate being closed and open, respectively. These locations are connected by edges. Edges are labeled. In this case, there are three labels: press, enter, and leave.

Fig. 4.2 Parking lot and ticket machine automaton.

The variable counter keeps track of the amount of cars currently in the parking lot. It is initialized to zero when entering the initial closed state. Independent on whether the gate is open or closed, the driver can always press the button on the ticket machine. In case the gate is already open, pressing the button has no effect. In case the gate is closed, the effect of pressing the button depends on the amount of cars currently in the parking lot. In case the parking lot is full, i.e., counter ≥ 100, pushing the button has again no effect. Otherwise, if the parking lot is not full yet, i.e., counter < 100, then with a probability of 10%, the button will fail and nothing will happen, and, with a probability of 90%, the counter is incremented by one and the gate will open. When the gate is open, a car can enter the parking lot. After entering, the gate will be closed again. Also, a car can leave the parking lot at any time. When a car leaves, the counter will be decremented by one.

Fig. 4.3 shows a JANI automaton modeling a driver who tries to enter the parking lot. The driver will try to press the button at most three times and enters the parking lot in case the gate opens. If the gate does not open after pressing the button three times, they will give up trying.

Fig. 4.3 Driver automaton.

By synchronizing these automata on their shared labels, press and enter, we obtain an automaton network. This network again has a semantics in terms of a transition system with probabilistic behavior and non-deterministic choices. See Fig. 4.4 for the transition system induced by synchronizing the parking lot and driver automata.

Fig. 4.4 State space of the parking lot JANI model.

Using this transition system, we can for instance model check the probability that the driver will eventually enter the parking lot given that the parking lot is in its initial completely empty state.

## 4.1.2. Momba¶

Momba provides various APIs for working with JANI models. For instance, it provides APIs to construct automata and automata networks. It supports declaring variables, constructing expressions over variables, and adding edges to automata. This is particularly useful, in case you need to construct a whole family of models programmatically. For instance, for the earlier introduced jump’n’run game, we would like to construct a model based on a file specifying a track. This goes beyond what is possible with mere parametrization of a model. Momba’s API can also be used to write translation tools from or to JANI or implement transformations on a model. In the next section, you will use Momba to construct a model of the jump’n’run game for a given track.