5 research outputs found
Certified Universal Gathering in for Oblivious Mobile Robots
We present a unified formal framework for expressing mobile robots models,
protocols, and proofs, and devise a protocol design/proof methodology dedicated
to mobile robots that takes advantage of this formal framework. As a case
study, we present the first formally certified protocol for oblivious mobile
robots evolving in a two-dimensional Euclidean space. In more details, we
provide a new algorithm for the problem of universal gathering mobile oblivious
robots (that is, starting from any initial configuration that is not bivalent,
using any number of robots, the robots reach in a finite number of steps the
same position, not known beforehand) without relying on a common orientation
nor chirality. We give very strong guaranties on the correctness of our
algorithm by proving formally that it is correct, using the COQ proof
assistant. This result demonstrates both the effectiveness of the approach to
obtain new algorithms that use as few assumptions as necessary, and its
manageability since the amount of developed code remains human readable.Comment: arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1506.0160
Parameterized Verification of Algorithms for Oblivious Robots on a Ring
We study verification problems for autonomous swarms of mobile robots that
self-organize and cooperate to solve global objectives. In particular, we focus
in this paper on the model proposed by Suzuki and Yamashita of anonymous robots
evolving in a discrete space with a finite number of locations (here, a ring).
A large number of algorithms have been proposed working for rings whose size is
not a priori fixed and can be hence considered as a parameter. Handmade
correctness proofs of these algorithms have been shown to be error-prone, and
recent attention had been given to the application of formal methods to
automatically prove those. Our work is the first to study the verification
problem of such algorithms in the parameter-ized case. We show that safety and
reachability problems are undecidable for robots evolving asynchronously. On
the positive side, we show that safety properties are decidable in the
synchronous case, as well as in the asynchronous case for a particular class of
algorithms. Several properties on the protocol can be decided as well. Decision
procedures rely on an encoding in Presburger arithmetics formulae that can be
verified by an SMT-solver. Feasibility of our approach is demonstrated by the
encoding of several case studies
Formal Methods for Mobile Robots
International audienceMost existing work in the literature typically ensures the correctness of mobile robot protocols via ad hoc handwritten proofs, which are both cumbersome and error-prone.This paper surveys state-of-the-art results about applying formal methods approaches (namely, model-checking, program synthesis, and proof assistants) to the context of mobile robot networks. Those methods already proved useful for bug-hunting in published literature, designing correct-by-design optimal protocols, and certifying impossibility results and protocols
[Invited Paper] Formal Methods for Mobile Robots: Current Results and Open Problems
International audienceMobile robot networks emerged in the past few years as a promising distributed computing model. Existing work in the literature typically ensures the correctness of mobile robot protocols via ad hoc handwritten proofs, which are both cumbersome and error-prone.This paper surveys state-of-the-art results about applying formal methods approaches (namely, model-checking, program synthesis, and proof assistants) to the context of mobile robot networks. Those methods already proved useful for bug-hunting in published literature, designing correct-by-design optimal protocols, and certifying impossibility results.We also present related open questions to further develop this path of research