A methodology for producing reliable software, volume 1

An investigation into the areas having an impact on producing reliable software including automated verification tools, software modeling, testing techniques, structured programming, and management techniques is presented. This final report contains the results of this investigation, analysis of each technique, and the definition of a methodology for producing reliable software

A Contribution to Solving the Problem of Automated Functional Verification ofConsumer Electronic Devices with Touchscreens

Predmet istraživanja ove doktorske disertacije je pronalaženje rešenja problema automatske funkcionalne provere uređaja potrošačke elektronike koji su zasnovani na ekranu osetljivom na dodir. Osnovni izazov je pronaći efikasan i pouzdan način električne stimulacije ekrana, bez mehaničke pobude. Drugi izazov je definisati algoritam za proveru sadržaja na ekranu posmatrajući ga sa stanovišta percepcije korisnika, pomoću kamere. Rezultat istraživanja je integrisani sistem sa stimulacionom pločom koja kontrolisano pobuđuje ekran električnim stimulusom, bez mehaničkih pokreta. Provera uređaja se vrši po principu crne kutije. Cilj sistema je proveriti da li se uređaj i njegova programska podrška ponašaju očekivano.Topic of research of this PhD thesis is finding the solution for the mentioned problem of automated functional verification of consumer electronics devices with touchscreens. The main challenge is to find a reliable and efficient way of electric stimulation of touchscreens, without mechanical movements. The second challenge is to design an algorithm for analysis of content on the touchscreen, observing it from the user’s perception, with the help of a camera. Result of the research is the integrated system with the stimulation board for controllable electrical stimulation of touchscreens, without mechanical movements. The integrated system verifies whether the device and its software behave as expected

Embodied Footprints: A Safety-guaranteed Collision Avoidance Model for Numerical Optimization-based Trajectory Planning

Numerical optimization-based methods are among the prevalent trajectory planners for autonomous driving. In a numerical optimization-based planner, the nominal continuous-time trajectory planning problem is discretized into a nonlinear program (NLP) problem with finite constraints imposed on finite collocation points. However, constraint violations between adjacent collocation points may still occur. This study proposes a safety-guaranteed collision-avoidance modeling method to eliminate the collision risks between adjacent collocation points in using numerical optimization-based trajectory planners. A new concept called embodied box is proposed, which is formed by enlarging the rectangular footprint of the ego vehicle. If one can ensure that the embodied boxes at finite collocation points are collide-free, then the ego vehicle's footprint is collide-free at any a moment between adjacent collocation points. We find that the geometric size of an embodied box is a simple function of vehicle velocity and curvature. The proposed theory lays a foundation for numerical optimization-based trajectory planners in autonomous driving.Comment: 12 pages, 13 figure

NASA space station automation: AI-based technology review

Research and Development projects in automation for the Space Station are discussed. Artificial Intelligence (AI) based automation technologies are planned to enhance crew safety through reduced need for EVA, increase crew productivity through the reduction of routine operations, increase space station autonomy, and augment space station capability through the use of teleoperation and robotics. AI technology will also be developed for the servicing of satellites at the Space Station, system monitoring and diagnosis, space manufacturing, and the assembly of large space structures

TxT: Real-time Transaction Encapsulation for Ethereum Smart Contracts

Ethereum is a permissionless blockchain ecosystem that supports execution of smart contracts, the key enablers of decentralized finance (DeFi) and non-fungible tokens (NFT). However, the expressiveness of Ethereum smart contracts is a double-edged sword: while it enables blockchain programmability, it also introduces security vulnerabilities, i.e., the exploitable discrepancies between expected and actual behaviors of the contract code. To address these discrepancies and increase the vulnerability coverage, we propose a new smart contract security testing approach called transaction encapsulation. The core idea lies in the local execution of transactions on a fully-synchronized yet isolated Ethereum node, which creates a preview of outcomes of transaction sequences on the current state of blockchain. This approach poses a critical technical challenge -- the well-known time-of-check/time-of-use (TOCTOU) problem, i.e., the assurance that the final transactions will exhibit the same execution paths as the encapsulated test transactions. In this work, we determine the exact conditions for guaranteed execution path replicability of the tested transactions, and implement a transaction testing tool, TxT, which reveals the actual outcomes of Ethereum transactions. To ensure the correctness of testing, TxT deterministically verifies whether a given sequence of transactions ensues an identical execution path on the current state of blockchain. We analyze over 1.3 billion Ethereum transactions and determine that 96.5% of them can be verified by TxT. We further show that TxT successfully reveals the suspicious behaviors associated with 31 out of 37 vulnerabilities (83.8% coverage) in the smart contract weakness classification (SWC) registry. In comparison, the vulnerability coverage of all the existing defense approaches combined only reaches 40.5%.Comment: To appear in IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Securit