Schedulability analysis and automated implementation of real-time object-oriented design models

There is a growing interest in adopting object technologies for the development of real-time systems. Several commercial tools, currently available, provide object-oriented modeling and design support for real-time systems. While these products provide many useful facilities, such as visualization tools and automatic code generation, they are all weak in addressing the central characteristic of real-time system design, i.e., providing support for a designer to reason about timeliness properties. We believe an approach that integrates the advancements in both object modeling and design methods, and real-time scheduling theory is the key to successful use of object technology for real-time software. We propose a methodology based on this idea for uni-processor multi-threaded environments. Specifically, given an application design model and end-to-end timing requirements, we synthesize a feasible implementation model using a built-in schedulability analysis tool. The synthesis process is supported by automatic code generation that can take the application design model and the synthesized implementation model and generate code for the target platform. In this thesis, I have designed and implemented some of the key components to support this methodology. First, I have developed a schedulability test that determines whether a particular implementation model satisfies the real-time requirements of an application. This can be used during the automatic synthesis process. Second, I have developed an initial implementation supporting automatic code generation, which takes textual specifications of the application design model and a synthesized implementation model, and automatically generates executable code for i

Teaching telecommunication standards: bridging the gap between theory and practice

©2017 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.Telecommunication standards have become a reliable mechanism to strengthen collaboration between industry and research institutions to accelerate the evolution of communications systems. Standards are needed to enable cooperation while promoting competition. Within the framework of a standard, the companies involved in the standardization process contribute and agree on appropriate technical specifications to ensure diversity and compatibility, and facilitate worldwide commercial deployment and evolution. Those parts of the system that can create competitive advantages are intentionally left open in the specifications. Such specifications are extensive, complex, and minimalistic. This makes telecommunication standards education a difficult endeavor, but it is much demanded by industry and governments to spur economic growth. This article describes a methodology for teaching wireless communications standards. We define our methodology around six learning stages that assimilate the standardization process and identify key learning objectives for each. Enabled by software-defined radio technology, we describe a practical learning environment that facilitates developing many of the needed technical and soft skills without the inherent difficulty and cost associated with radio frequency components and regulation. Using only open source software and commercial of-the-shelf computers, this environment is portable and can easily be recreated at other educational institutions and adapted to their educational needs and constraints. We discuss our and our students' experiences when employing the proposed methodology to 4G LTE standard education at Barcelona Tech.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

What makes industries believe in formal methods

The introduction of formal methods in the design and development departments of an industrial company has far reaching and long lasting consequences. In fact it changes the whole environment of methods, tools and skills that determine the design culture of that company. A decision to replace current design practice by formal methods, therefore, appears a vital one and is not lightly taken. The past has shown that efforts to introduce formal methods in industry has faced a lot of controversy and opposition at various hierarchical levels in companies, resulting in a marginal spread of such methods. This paper revisits the requirements for formal description techniques and identifies some critical success and inhibiting factors associated with the introduction of formal methods in the industrial practice. One of the inhibiting factors is the often encountered lack of appropriateness of the formal model to express and manipulate the design concerns that determine the world of the engineer. This factor motivated our research in the area of architectural and implementation design concepts. The last two sections of this paper report on some results of this research

A dynamics-driven approach to precision machines design for micro-manufacturing and its implementation perspectives

Precision machines are essential elements in fabricating high quality micro products or micro features and directly affect the machining accuracy, repeatability and efficiency. There are a number of literatures on the design of industrial machine elements and a couple of precision machines commercially available. However, few researchers have systematically addressed the design of precision machines from the dynamics point of view. In this paper, the design issues of precision machines are presented with particular emphasis on the dynamics aspects as the major factors affecting the performance of the precision machines and machining processes. This paper begins with a brief review of the design principles of precision machines with emphasis on machining dynamics. Then design processes of precision machines are discussed, and followed by a practical modelling and simulation approaches. Two case studies are provided including the design and analysis of a fast tool servo system and a 5-axis bench-top micro-milling machine respectively. The design and analysis used in the two case studies are formulated based on the design methodology and guidelines

Formalization and Validation of Safety-Critical Requirements

The validation of requirements is a fundamental step in the development process of safety-critical systems. In safety critical applications such as aerospace, avionics and railways, the use of formal methods is of paramount importance both for requirements and for design validation. Nevertheless, while for the verification of the design, many formal techniques have been conceived and applied, the research on formal methods for requirements validation is not yet mature. The main obstacles are that, on the one hand, the correctness of requirements is not formally defined; on the other hand that the formalization and the validation of the requirements usually demands a strong involvement of domain experts. We report on a methodology and a series of techniques that we developed for the formalization and validation of high-level requirements for safety-critical applications. The main ingredients are a very expressive formal language and automatic satisfiability procedures. The language combines first-order, temporal, and hybrid logic. The satisfiability procedures are based on model checking and satisfiability modulo theory. We applied this technology within an industrial project to the validation of railways requirements

An Adaptive Design Methodology for Reduction of Product Development Risk

Embedded systems interaction with environment inherently complicates understanding of requirements and their correct implementation. However, product uncertainty is highest during early stages of development. Design verification is an essential step in the development of any system, especially for Embedded System. This paper introduces a novel adaptive design methodology, which incorporates step-wise prototyping and verification. With each adaptive step product-realization level is enhanced while decreasing the level of product uncertainty, thereby reducing the overall costs. The back-bone of this frame-work is the development of Domain Specific Operational (DOP) Model and the associated Verification Instrumentation for Test and Evaluation, developed based on the DOP model. Together they generate functionally valid test-sequence for carrying out prototype evaluation. With the help of a case study 'Multimode Detection Subsystem' the application of this method is sketched. The design methodologies can be compared by defining and computing a generic performance criterion like Average design-cycle Risk. For the case study, by computing Average design-cycle Risk, it is shown that the adaptive method reduces the product development risk for a small increase in the total design cycle time.Comment: 21 pages, 9 figure

Using formal methods to support testing

Formal methods and testing are two important approaches that assist in the development of high quality software. While traditionally these approaches have been seen as rivals, in recent years a new consensus has developed in which they are seen as complementary. This article reviews the state of the art regarding ways in which the presence of a formal specification can be used to assist testing