A synchronous paradigm for modeling stable reactive systems

This paper describes a modeling technique for single-agent reactive systems, that is influenced by the modeling paradigm of Parnas as well as by the synchronous paradigms of LUSTRE and ESTEREL. In this paradigm, single-agent reactive systems are modeled in a universe having a discrete clock. This discretization of time greatly reduces the temporal complexity of the model. He believes that the advantage of this reduction in temporal complexity is that the resulting model is in many ways better suited to automated software construction and analysis techniques (e.g., deductive synthesis, transformation, and verification) than models that are based on continuous representations of time

Using virtual reality for requirements validation

Failures of high consequence systems are intolerable. Studies have shown that a significant percentage of safety problems can be traced back to errors in the specification. An important problem that arises during validation is how to include a domain expert in this process. Although the domain experts have exclusive knowledge about the system operation, they may not understand formalisms used for system specification.;Essential type of evidence of the correctness of the formalization process must be provided by human-based calculation. Human calculation can be significantly amplified by shifting from symbolic representation to graphical representations. This, in turn, provides an environment for validation of the system model.;We have developed a virtual environment model for the Production Cell robotic system, which runs in an ImmersaDesk Virtual Reality environment. Although it introduces higher cost in the requirements formalization phase, this approach can be very beneficial in the development of high consequence systems