Comparative Case Studies of Reactive Synthesis and Supervisory Control

Reactive Synthesis and Supervisory Control Theory are both systematic approaches for the automatic construction of controllers from requirements. However, their underlying technicalities differ significantly. This paper provides an empirical comparison between these two approaches from the modelling perspective through case studies. Using the synthesis tools TuLiP and Supremica, two examples are modelled in the typical modelling formalism supported by each tool, and the algorithms are applied to synthesize controllers. Based on the obtained models and experiences, we compare how the models are derived, and how the characteristics of the examples and the underlying synthesis algorithms influence the modelling choices

Correct-by-Construction Tactical Planners for Automated Cars

One goal of developing automated cars is to completely free people from driving tasks. Automated cars that require no human driver need to handle all traffic situations that a human driver is expected to handle, and possibly more. Although human drivers cause a lot of traffic accidents, they still have a very low accident and failure rate that automated systems must match.Tactical planners are responsible for making discrete decisions during the coming seconds or minute. As with all subsystems in an automated car, these planners need to be supported with a credible and convincing argument of their correctness. The planners\u27 decisions affect the environment and the planners need to interact with other road users in a feedback loop, so the correctness of the planners depend on their behavior in relation to other drivers and the environment over time. One possibility to ascertain their correctness is to deploy the planners in real traffic. To be sufficiently certain that a tactical planner is safe by that methods, it needs to be tested on 255 million miles without having an accident.Formal methods can, in contrast to testing, mathematically prove that the requirements are fulfilled. Hence, they are a promising alternative for making credible arguments of tactical planners\u27 correctness. The topic of this thesis is how formal methods can be used in the automotive industry to design safe tactical planners. What is interesting is both how automotive systems should be modeled in formal frameworks, and how formal methods can be used practically within the automotive development process.The main findings of this thesis are that it is natural to express desired properties of tactical planners in formal languages and use formal methods to prove their correctness. Model Checking, Reactive Synthesis, and Supervisory Control Theory have been used in the design and development process of tactical planners, and all three methods have their benefits, depending on the application.Formal synthesis is an especially interesting class of formal methods because they can automatically generate a planner based on requirements and models. Formal synthesis removes the need to manually develop and implement the planner, so the development efforts can be directed to formalizing good requirements on the planner and good assumptions on the environment. However, formal synthesis has two limitations: the resulting planner is a black box that is difficult to inspect, and it is difficult to find a level of abstraction that allows detailed requirements and generic planners

Formal Methods and Safety for Automated Vehicles: Modeling, Abstractions, and Synthesis of Tactical Planners

One goal of developing automated road vehicles is to completely free people from driving tasks. Automated vehicles with no human driver must handle all traffic situations that human drivers are expected to handle, possibly more. Though human drivers cause a lot of traffic accidents, they still have a very low accident and failure rate that automated vehicles must match.Tactical planners are responsible for making discrete decisions for the coming seconds or minutes. As with all subsystems in an automated vehicle, these planners need to be supported with a credible and convincing argument of their correctness. The planners interact with other road users in a feedback loop, so their correctness depends on their behavior in relation to other drivers and road users over time. One way to ascertain their correctness is to test the vehicles in real traffic. But to be sufficiently certain that a tactical planner is safe, it has to be tested on 255 million miles with no accidents.Formal methods can, in contrast to testing, mathematically prove that given requirements are fulfilled. Hence, these methods are a promising alternative for making credible arguments for tactical planners’ correctness. The topic of this thesis is the use of formal methods in the automotive industry to design safe tactical planners. What is interesting is both how automotive systems can be modeled in formal frameworks, and how formal methods can be used practically within the automotive development process.The main findings of this thesis are that it is viable to formally express desired properties of tactical planners, and to use formal methods to prove their correctness. However, the difficulty to anticipate and inspect the interaction of several desired properties is found to be an obstacle. Model Checking, Reactive Synthesis, and Supervisory Control Theory have been used in the design and development process of tactical planners, and these methods have their benefits, depending on the application. To be feasible and useful, these methods need to operate on both a high and a low level of abstraction, and this thesis contributes an automatic abstraction method that bridges this divide.It is also found that artifacts from formal methods tools may be used to convincingly argue that a realization of a tactical planner is safe, and that such an argument puts formal requirements on the vehicle’s other subsystems and its surroundings

Supervisory Controller Synthesis for Non-terminating Processes is an Obliging Game

We present a new algorithm to solve the supervisory control problem over non-terminating processes modeled as $\omega$-regular automata. A solution to this problem was obtained by Thistle in 1995 which uses complex manipulations of automata. We show a new solution to the problem through a reduction to obliging games, which, in turn, can be reduced to $\omega$-regular reactive synthesis. Therefore, our reduction results in a symbolic algorithm based on manipulating sets of states using tools from reactive synthesis

Modern software cybernetics: new trends

Software cybernetics research is to apply a variety of techniques from cybernetics research to software engineering research. For more than fifteen years since 2001, there has been a dramatic increase in work relating to software cybernetics. From cybernetics viewpoint, the work is mainly on the first-order level, namely, the software under observation and control. Beyond the first-order cybernetics, the software, developers/users, and running environments influence each other and thus create feedback to form more complicated systems. We classify software cybernetics as Software Cybernetics I based on the first-order cybernetics, and as Software Cybernetics II based on the higher order cybernetics. This paper provides a review of the literature on software cybernetics, particularly focusing on the transition from Software Cybernetics I to Software Cybernetics II. The results of the survey indicate that some new research areas such as Internet of Things, big data, cloud computing, cyber-physical systems, and even creative computing are related to Software Cybernetics II. The paper identifies the relationships between the techniques of Software Cybernetics II applied and the new research areas to which they have been applied, formulates research problems and challenges of software cybernetics with the application of principles of Phase II of software cybernetics; identifies and highlights new research trends of software cybernetic for further research