Bisimulation conversion and verification procedure for goal-based control systems

Fault tolerance and safety verification of control systems are essential for the success of autonomous robotic systems. A control architecture called Mission Data System (MDS), developed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, addresses these needs with a goal-based control approach. In this paper, a software algorithm for converting goal network control systems into linear hybrid systems is described. The conversion process is a bisimulation; the resulting linear hybrid system can be verified for safety in the presence of failures using existing symbolic model checkers, and thus the original goal network is verified. A moderately complex example goal network control system is converted to a linear hybrid system using the automatic conversion software that is based on the bisimulation and then is verified