Modeling and Formal Verification of Smart Environments

Smart Environments (SmE) are a growing combination of various computing frameworks (ubiquitous, pervasive etc), devices, control algorithms and a complex web of interactions. It is at the core of user facilitation in a number of industrial, domestic and public areas. Based on their application areas, SmE may be critical in terms of correctness, reliability, safety, security etc. To achieve error-free and requirement-compliant implementation, these systems are designed resorting to various modeling approaches including Ontology and Statecharts. This paper attempts to consider correctness, reliability, safety and security in the design process of SmE and its related components by proposing a design time modeling and formal verification methodology. The proposed methodology covers various design features related to modeling and formal verification SmE (focusing on users, devices, environment, control algorithms and their interaction) against the set of the requirements through model checking. A realistic case study of a Bank Door Security Booth System (BDSB) is tested. The results show the successful verification of the properties related to the safety, security and desired reliable behavior of BDSB

DoMAIns: Domain-based Modeling for Ambient Intelligence

Ambient Intelligence and Smart Home Automation systems are currently emerging as feasible and ready to exploit solutions to support more intelligent features inside future and current homes. Thanks to increased availability of off-the-shelf components and to relatively easy to implement solutions we are experiencing a steady evolution of households, causing an ever-increasing users’ awareness of the capabilities of such innovative environments. To foster effective adoption of Smart Home Automation technologies in our home environments, traditional architectural and plant design must be complemented by sound design methodologies and tools, supporting the whole environment design cycle, including for example modeling, simulation and emulation, as well as, when feasible, formal model-checking and verification. Several research efforts have already addressed the design of expressive modeling tools, mostly based on Semantic Web technologies, as well as of suitable platforms for adding interoperation and rule-based intelligence to home environments. This paper proposes a new modeling methodology designed to fit the different phases of Intelligent Environments design, with a particular focus on validation and verification of the whole system. Carefully designed separation of modeled entities permits to exploit the DoMAIns framework during all phases of the environment design, from early abstract conception to the final in-field deployment. The DoMAIns design methodology is applied to a sample use case that involves comprehensive modeling and simulation of a Bank Security Booth, including the environment, the control algorithms, the automation devices and the user. Results show that the approach is feasible and that can easily handle different types of environment modeling, required in the different design phases, and for each of them it may support simulation, emulation, or other verification techniques

Design Time Methodology for the Formal Modeling and Verification of Smart Environments

Smart Environments (SmE) are intelligent and complex due to smart connectivity and interaction of heterogeneous devices achieved by complicated and sophisticated computing algorithms. Based on their domotic and industrial applications, SmE system may be critical in terms of correctness, reliability, safety, security and other such vital factors. To achieve error-free and requirement-compliant implementation of these systems, it is advisable to enforce a design process that may guarantee these factors by adopting formal models and formal verification techniques at design time. The e-Lite research group at Politecnico di Torino is developing solutions for SmE based on integration of commercially available home automation technologies with an intelligent ecosystem based on a central OSGi-based gateway, and distributed collaboration of intelligent applications, with the help of semantic web technologies and applications. The main goal of my research is to study new methodologies which are used for the modeling and verification of SmE. This goal includes the development of a formal methodology which ensures the reliable implementation of the requirements on SmE, by modeling and verifying each component (users, devices, control algorithms and environment/context) and the interaction among them, especially at various stages in design time, so that all the complexities and ambiguities can be reduced

Design-time formal verification for smart environments: an exploratory perspective

Smart environments (SmE) are richly integrated with multiple heterogeneous devices; they perform the operations in intelligent manner by considering the context and actions/behaviors of the users. Their major objective is to enable the environment to provide ease and comfort to the users. The reliance on these systems demands consistent behavior. The versatility of devices, user behavior and intricacy of communication complicate the modeling and verification of SmE's reliable behavior. Of the many available modeling and verification techniques, formal methods appear to be the most promising. Due to a large variety of implementation scenarios and support for conditional behavior/processing, the concept of SmE is applicable to diverse areas which calls for focused research. As a result, a number of modeling and verification techniques have been made available for designers. This paper explores and puts into perspective the modeling and verification techniques based on an extended literature survey. These techniques mainly focus on some specific aspects, with a few overlapping scenarios (such as user interaction, devices interaction and control, context awareness, etc.), which were of the interest to the researchers based on their specialized competencies. The techniques are categorized on the basis of various factors and formalisms considered for the modeling and verification and later analyzed. The results show that no surveyed technique maintains a holistic perspective; each technique is used for the modeling and verification of specific SmE aspects. The results further help the designers select appropriate modeling and verification techniques under given requirements and stress for more R&D effort into SmE modeling and verification researc

Intelligent agent for formal modelling of temporal multi-agent systems

Software systems are becoming complex and dynamic with the passage of time, and to provide better fault tolerance and resource management they need to have the ability of self-adaptation. Multi-agent systems paradigm is an active area of research for modeling real-time systems. In this research, we have proposed a new agent named SA-ARTIS-agent, which is designed to work in hard real-time temporal constraints with the ability of self-adaptation. This agent can be used for the formal modeling of any self-adaptive real-time multi-agent system. Our agent integrates the MAPE-K feedback loop with ARTIS agent for the provision of self-adaptation. For an unambiguous description, we formally specify our SA-ARTIS-agent using Time-Communicating Object-Z (TCOZ) language. The objective of this research is to provide an intelligent agent with self-adaptive abilities for the execution of tasks with temporal constraints. Previous works in this domain have used Z language which is not expressive to model the distributed communication process of agents. The novelty of our work is that we specified the non-terminating behavior of agents using active class concept of TCOZ and expressed the distributed communication among agents. For communication between active entities, channel communication mechanism of TCOZ is utilized. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed agent using a real-time case study of traffic monitoring system