Evolution-Based Timed Opacity under a Universal Observation Model

Computer Science > Formal Languages and Automata Theory [Submitted on 27 Mar 2026] Evolution-Based Timed Opacity under a Universal Observation Model Zhe Zhang, Martijn Goorden, Michel Reniers Existing literature on timed opacity uses specific definitions for restricted subclasses of timed automata or limited observation models. This lack of a unified definition makes it difficult to establish formal relationships and compare the expressiveness of different opacity variants. This paper establishes a unified framework for timed opacity by introducing a universal observation model for timed automata. First, we introduce an observation model with full observation of time delay and partial observation of locations, clocks, and events. Second, based on this model, we define the notion of evolution-based timed opacity. Third, we mathematically prove that evolution-based timed opacity strictly implies language-based timed opacity and establish a formal equivalence with execution-time opacity under constrained observations. This framework establishes a unified semantic hierarchy for characterizing the landscape of timed opacity. Comments: 11 pages, 5 figures, extended version of a paper submitted to the 65th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (CDC 2026) Subjects: Formal Languages and Automata Theory (cs.FL); Cryptography and Security (cs.CR) MSC classes: 93C65, 68Q45 ACM classes: F.1.1; F.4.3 Cite as: arXiv:2603.26573 [cs.FL]   (or arXiv:2603.26573v1 [cs.FL] for this version)   https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2603.26573 Focus to learn more Submission history From: Zhe Zhang [view email] [v1] Fri, 27 Mar 2026 16:34:28 UTC (30 KB) Access Paper: HTML (experimental) view license Current browse context: cs.FL < prev   |   next > new | recent | 2026-03 Change to browse by: cs cs.CR References & Citations NASA ADS Google Scholar Semantic Scholar Export BibTeX Citation Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer (What is the Explorer?) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers (What is Connected Papers?) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps (What is Litmaps?) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations (What are Smart Citations?) Code, Data, Media Demos Related Papers About arXivLabs Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax (What is MathJax?)