A Methodology for Structured Object-Oriented Elicitation and Analysis of Temporal Constraints in Hardware/Software Co-Analysis and Co-Design of Real-Time Systems

The hardware/software co-design of a high-quality real-time system relies heavily on the modeling of both the hardware and software components from three aspects: structures, functionalities, and constraints, especially the temporal constraints. However, there is not a systematic process for the elicitation and analysis of temporal constraints in hardware/software co-design. Furthermore, existing object-oriented methods provide no means for the explicit specification of system/component constraints in object models. This paper presents a systematic methodology for structured object-oriented analysis and specification of temporal constraints in hardware/software co-analysis and co-design using an extended High-Order Object-Oriented Modeling Technique (HOOMT). This methodology hierarchically elicits and analyzes the temporal constraints in hardware/software co-design based on the integration of the High-Order Object Model (HOOM) and Hierarchical Timed Automata (HTA). It helps to identify temporal constraints of hardware and software components as well as their interactions level by level. In addition, it helps trace the relationships among these constraints at multiple levels during the co-design of real-time systems. A case study from the hardware/software co-design of the simulated FACTS Power Transmission System is used to illustrate the feasibility and merits of this methodology

Effective encodings of constraint programming models to SMT

Funding: UK EPSRC grant EP/P015638/1.Satisfiability Modulo Theories (SMT) is a well-established methodology that generalises propositional satisfiability (SAT) by adding support for a variety of theories such as integer arithmetic and bit-vector operations. SMT solvers have made rapid progress in recent years. In part, the efficiency of modern SMT solvers derives from the use of specialised decision procedures for each theory. In this paper we explore how the Essence Prime constraint modelling language can be translated to the standard SMT-LIB language. We target four theories: bit-vectors (QF_BV), linear integer arithmetic (QF_LIA), non-linear integer arithmetic (QF_NIA), and integer difference logic (QF_IDL). The encodings are implemented in the constraint modelling tool Savile Row. In an extensive set of experiments, we compare our encodings for the four theories, showing some notable differences and complementary strengths. We also compare our new encodings to the existing work targeting SMT and SAT, and to a well-established learning CP solver. Our two proposed encodings targeting the theory of bit-vectors (QF_BV) both substantially outperform earlier work on encoding to QF_BV on a large and diverse set of problem classes.Postprin

Effective Encodings of Constraint Programming Models to SMT

Satisfiability Modulo Theories (SMT) is a well-established methodology that generalises propositional satisfiability (SAT) by adding support for a variety of theories such as integer arithmetic and bit-vector operations. SMT solvers have made rapid progress in recent years. In part, the efficiency of modern SMT solvers derives from the use of specialised decision procedures for each theory. In this paper we explore how the Essence Prime constraint modelling language can be translated to the standard SMT-LIB language. We target four theories: bit-vectors (QF_BV), linear integer arithmetic (QF_LIA), non-linear integer arithmetic (QF_NIA), and integer difference logic (QF_IDL). The encodings are implemented in the constraint modelling tool Savile Row. In an extensive set of experiments, we compare our encodings for the four theories, showing some notable differences and complementary strengths. We also compare our new encodings to the existing work targeting SMT and SAT, and to a well-established learning CP solver. Our two proposed encodings targeting the theory of bit-vectors (QF_BV) both substantially outperform earlier work on encoding to QF_BV on a large and diverse set of problem classes

A state/event-based model-checking approach for the analysis of abstract system properties.

AbstractWe present the UMC framework for the formal analysis of concurrent systems specified by collections of UML state machines. The formal model of a system is given by a doubly labelled transition system, and the logic used to specify its properties is the state-based and event-based logic UCTL. UMC is an on-the-fly analysis framework which allows the user to interactively explore a UML model, to visualize abstract behavioural slices of it and to perform local model checking of UCTL formulae. An automotive scenario from the service-oriented computing (SOC) domain is used as case study to illustrate our approach

Axiomatisation and decidability of multi-dimensional Duration Calculus

AbstractThe Shape Calculus is a spatio-temporal logic based on an n-dimensional Duration Calculus tailored for the specification and verification of mobile real-time systems. After showing non-axiomatisability, we give a complete embedding in n-dimensional interval temporal logic and present two different decidable subsets, which are important for tool support and practical use

Analysing RoboChart with probabilities

Robotic systems have applications in many real-life scenarios, ranging from household cleaning to critical operations. RoboChart is a graphical language for describing robotic controllers designed specifically for autonomous and mobile robots, providing architectural constructs to identify the requirements for a robotic platform. It also provides a formal semantics in CSP. RoboChart has a probabilistic operator (P) but no associated probabilistic CSP semantics. When (P) is used, currently a non-deterministic choice (Π) is used as semantics; this is a conservative semantics but it does not allow the analysis of stochastic properties. In this paper we define the semantics of the operator in terms of the probabilistic CSP operator ⊞. We also show how this augmented CSP semantics for RoboChart can be translated into the PRISM probabilistic language to be able to check stochastic properties