Automated Generation of Promela Model from SDL Specification

NOTICE: This is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Computer Standards & Interfaces. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. Please cite this article as: B. Vlaovič et al., Automated generation of Promela model from SDL specification, Computer Standards & Interfaces, 2007, iss. 4, vol. 29, pages 449-461. This paper presents our research in the domain of automated generation of a model from an SDL (Specification and Description Language) system specification. We use the Spin (Simple Promela Interpreter) formal verification tool and the Promela (Process Meta-Language) language for the description of the model. If the model is prepared manually, we need an expert with the detailed knowledge of the system, specification language, and modelling language. The quality of the model is directly influenced by the expert and is prone to the incorrect modelling of the system’s properties due to the human error. Therefore, automatic generation of the model from the SDL specification is desired. In this paper we present our approach to the automated generation of the model in Promela. Additionally, we present challenges and future research directions