Designing Robust Software Systems through Parametric Markov Chain Synthesis

We present a method for the synthesis of software system designs that satisfy strict quality requirements, are Pareto-optimal with respect to a set of quality optimisation criteria, and are robust to variations in the system parameters. To this end, we model the design space of the system under development as a parametric continuous-time Markov chain (pCTMC) with discrete and continuous parameters that correspond to alternative system architectures and to the ranges of possible values for configuration parameters, respectively. Given this pCTMC and required tolerance levels for the configuration parameters, our method produces a sensitivity-aware Pareto-optimal set of designs, which allows the modeller to inspect the ranges of quality attributes induced by these tolerances, thus enabling the effective selection of robust designs. Through application to two systems from different domains, we demonstrate the ability of our method to synthesise robust designs with a wide spectrum of useful tradeoffs between quality attributes and sensitivity

Scalable Approach to Uncertainty Quantification and Robust Design of Interconnected Dynamical Systems

Development of robust dynamical systems and networks such as autonomous aircraft systems capable of accomplishing complex missions faces challenges due to the dynamically evolving uncertainties coming from model uncertainties, necessity to operate in a hostile cluttered urban environment, and the distributed and dynamic nature of the communication and computation resources. Model-based robust design is difficult because of the complexity of the hybrid dynamic models including continuous vehicle dynamics, the discrete models of computations and communications, and the size of the problem. We will overview recent advances in methodology and tools to model, analyze, and design robust autonomous aerospace systems operating in uncertain environment, with stress on efficient uncertainty quantification and robust design using the case studies of the mission including model-based target tracking and search, and trajectory planning in uncertain urban environment. To show that the methodology is generally applicable to uncertain dynamical systems, we will also show examples of application of the new methods to efficient uncertainty quantification of energy usage in buildings, and stability assessment of interconnected power networks

RODES: A Robust-Design Synthesis Tool for Probabilistic Systems

We introduce RODES – a tool for the synthesis of probabilis- tic systems that satisfy strict reliability and performance requirements, are Pareto-optimal with respect to a set of optimisation objectives, and are robust to variations in the system parameters. Given the design space of a system (modelled as a parametric continuous-time Markov chain), RODES generates system designs with low sensitivity to required tol- erance levels for the system parameters. As such, RODES can be used to identify and compare robust designs across a wide range of Pareto- optimal tradeoffs between the system optimisation objectives

Interval Change-Point Detection for Runtime Probabilistic Model Checking

Recent probabilistic model checking techniques can verify reliability and performance properties of software systems affected by parametric uncertainty. This involves modelling the system behaviour using interval Markov chains, i.e., Markov models with transition probabilities or rates specified as intervals. These intervals can be updated continually using Bayesian estimators with imprecise priors, enabling the verification of the system properties of interest at runtime. However, Bayesian estimators are slow to react to sudden changes in the actual value of the estimated parameters, yielding inaccurate intervals and leading to poor verification results after such changes. To address this limitation, we introduce an efficient interval change-point detection method, and we integrate it with a state-of-the-art Bayesian estimator with imprecise priors. Our experimental results show that the resulting end-to-end Bayesian approach to change-point detection and estimation of interval Markov chain parameters handles effectively a wide range of sudden changes in parameter values, and supports runtime probabilistic model checking under parametric uncertainty

Efficient Synthesis of Robust Models for Stochastic Systems

We describe a tool-supported method for the efficient synthesis of parametric continuous-time Markov chains (pCTMC) that correspond to robust designs of a system under development. The pCTMCs generated by our RObust DEsign Synthesis (RODES) method are resilient to changes in the system’s operational profile, satisfy strict reliability, performance and other quality constraints, and are Pareto-optimal or nearly Pareto-optimal with respect to a set of quality optimisation criteria. By integrating sensitivity analysis at designer-specified tolerance levels and Pareto optimality, RODES produces designs that are potentially slightly suboptimal in return for less sensitivity—an acceptable trade-off in engineering practice. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our method and the efficiency of its GPU-accelerated tool support across multiple application domains by using RODES to design a producer-consumer system, a replicated file system and a workstation cluster system