CAV 2024 Award: Clark Barrett, David Dill, Kyle Julian, Guy Katz, Mykel Kochenderfer for Reluplex

July 27, 2024 - PRLog -- CAV 2024 Award

We are pleased to announce that the Computer Aided Verification (CAV) 2024 Award is given to:

Clark Barrett, David Dill, Kyle Julian, Guy Katz, and Mykel Kochenderfer for their CAV 2017 paper titled "Reluplex: An Efficient SMT Solver for Verifying Deep Neural Networks"

Deep neural networks are a state-of-the-art machine learning technology, which has become dominant in many areas within computer science. In a groundbreaking CAV 2017 paper, titled "Reluplex: An Efficient SMT Solver for Verifying Deep Neural Networks", the authors, Clark Barrett, David Dill, Kyle Julian, Guy Katz, and Mykel Kochenderfer, developed a novel SMT-based algorithm, Reluplex, for verifying deep neural networks. The original algorithm was written to help verify the "Airborne Collision-Avoidance System for drone" system (ACAS-Xu).  Through Reluplex, the authors demonstrated, for the first time, that real-world neural networks could be verified. Reluplex could tackle neural networks that were over an order-of-magnitude larger as compared to previous verification techniques.

The Reluplex work had an immense impact on formal methods research, by creating a  highly active sub-field within the verification community, which is now center-stage in every major verification conference and is also subject to an annual competition dedicated specifically to the verification of neural networks (VNN-COMP). The Reluplex algorithm has been extended and enhanced, by the authors and by others, and the original paper has already accumulated more than 2000 citations (as of May 2024) – making it one of the most well-cited CAV papers in the past decades. Following their initial work, the authors continue to play a key role in solidifying the field of neural network verification.

For more information please check: https://i-cav.org/2024/cav-award/

Congratulations!

The CAV Award Committee:

Corina Pasareanu (https://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/pcorina/) (Chair)   NASA

Rupak Majumdar (https://people.mpi-sws.org/~rupak/)   MPI-SWS

Ranjit Jhala (https://ranjitjhala.github.io)   University of California, San Diego

Alessandro Cimatti (https://dicenter.fbk.eu/contacts/alessandro-cimatti/)   Fondazione Bruno Kessler