Specification and verification of reconfiguration protocols in grid component systems

In this work we present an approach for the formal specification and verification of the reconfiguration protocols in Grid component systems. We consider Fractal, a modular and extensible component model. As a specification tool we invoke a specific temporal language, separated clausal normal form, which has been shown to be capable of expressing any ECTL+ expression thus, we are able to express the complex fairness properties of a component system. The structure of the normal enables us to directly apply the deductive verification technique, temporal resolution defined in the framework of branching-time temporal logic

An Object-Oriented Framework for Explicit-State Model Checking

This paper presents a conceptual architecture for an object-oriented framework to support the development of formal verification tools (i.e. model checkers). The objective of the architecture is to support the reuse of algorithms and to encourage a modular design of tools. The conceptual framework is accompanied by a C++ implementation which provides reusable algorithms for the simulation and verification of explicit-state models as well as a model representation for simple models based on guard-based process descriptions. The framework has been successfully used to develop a model checker for a subset of PROMELA

SOTER: A Runtime Assurance Framework for Programming Safe Robotics Systems

The recent drive towards achieving greater autonomy and intelligence in robotics has led to high levels of complexity. Autonomous robots increasingly depend on third party off-the-shelf components and complex machine-learning techniques. This trend makes it challenging to provide strong design-time certification of correct operation. To address these challenges, we present SOTER, a robotics programming framework with two key components: (1) a programming language for implementing and testing high-level reactive robotics software and (2) an integrated runtime assurance (RTA) system that helps enable the use of uncertified components, while still providing safety guarantees. SOTER provides language primitives to declaratively construct a RTA module consisting of an advanced, high-performance controller (uncertified), a safe, lower-performance controller (certified), and the desired safety specification. The framework provides a formal guarantee that a well-formed RTA module always satisfies the safety specification, without completely sacrificing performance by using higher performance uncertified components whenever safe. SOTER allows the complex robotics software stack to be constructed as a composition of RTA modules, where each uncertified component is protected using a RTA module. To demonstrate the efficacy of our framework, we consider a real-world case-study of building a safe drone surveillance system. Our experiments both in simulation and on actual drones show that the SOTER-enabled RTA ensures the safety of the system, including when untrusted third-party components have bugs or deviate from the desired behavior