12,097 research outputs found
Formal Specification and Verification for Automated Production Systems
Complex industrial control software often drives safety- and mission-critical
systems, like automated production plants or control units embedded into devices in automotive systems. Such controllers have in common that they are reactive systems, i.e., that they periodically read sensor stimuli and cyclically execute the same program to produce actuator signals.
The correctness of software for automated production is rarely verified using
formal techniques. Although, due to the Industrial Revolution 4.0 (IR4.0), the
impact and importance of software have become an important role in industrial automation.
What is used instead in industrial practice today is testing and simulation,
where individual test cases are used to validate an automated production system.
Three reasons why formal methods are not popular are: (a) It is difficult to
adequately formulate the desired temporal properties. (b) There is a lack of
specification languages for reactive systems that are both sufficiently
expressive and comprehensible for practitioners. (c) Due to the lack of an
environment model the obtained results are imprecise. Nonetheless, formal
methods for automated production systems are well studied academically---mainly on the verification of safety properties via model checking.
In this doctoral thesis we present the concept of (1) generalized test tables
(GTTs), a new specification language for functional properties, and their
extension (2) relational test tables (RTTs) for relational properties. The
concept includes the syntactical notion, designed for the intuition of
engineers, and the semantics, which are based on game theory. We use RTTs for a novel confidential property on reactive systems, the provably forgetting of information. Moreover, for regression verification, an important relational
property, we are able to achieve performance improvements by (3) creating
a decomposing rule which splits large proofs into small sub-task. We implemented the verification procedures and evaluated them against realistic case studies, e.g., the Pick-and-Place-Unit from the Technical University of Munich.
The presented contribution follows the idea of lowering the obstacle of
verifying the dependability of reactive systems in general, and automated
production systems in particular for the engineer either by introducing a new
specification language (GTTs), by exploiting existing programs for the
specification (RTTs, regression verification), or by improving the verification
performance
Cyber-Virtual Systems: Simulation, Validation & Visualization
We describe our ongoing work and view on simulation, validation and
visualization of cyber-physical systems in industrial automation during
development, operation and maintenance. System models may represent an existing
physical part - for example an existing robot installation - and a software
simulated part - for example a possible future extension. We call such systems
cyber-virtual systems.
In this paper, we present the existing VITELab infrastructure for
visualization tasks in industrial automation. The new methodology for
simulation and validation motivated in this paper integrates this
infrastructure. We are targeting scenarios, where industrial sites which may be
in remote locations are modeled and visualized from different sites anywhere in
the world.
Complementing the visualization work, here, we are also concentrating on
software modeling challenges related to cyber-virtual systems and simulation,
testing, validation and verification techniques for them. Software models of
industrial sites require behavioural models of the components of the industrial
sites such as models for tools, robots, workpieces and other machinery as well
as communication and sensor facilities. Furthermore, collaboration between
sites is an important goal of our work.Comment: Preprint, 9th International Conference on Evaluation of Novel
Approaches to Software Engineering (ENASE 2014
Requirements modelling and formal analysis using graph operations
The increasing complexity of enterprise systems requires a more advanced
analysis of the representation of services expected than is currently possible.
Consequently, the specification stage, which could be facilitated by formal
verification, becomes very important to the system life-cycle. This paper presents
a formal modelling approach, which may be used in order to better represent
the reality of the system and to verify the awaited or existing system’s properties,
taking into account the environmental characteristics. For that, we firstly propose
a formalization process based upon properties specification, and secondly we
use Conceptual Graphs operations to develop reasoning mechanisms of verifying
requirements statements. The graphic visualization of these reasoning enables us
to correctly capture the system specifications by making it easier to determine if
desired properties hold. It is applied to the field of Enterprise modelling
A formal verification framework and associated tools for enterprise modeling : application to UEML
The aim of this paper is to propose and apply a verification and validation approach to Enterprise Modeling that enables the user to improve the relevance and correctness, the suitability and coherence of a model by using properties specification and formal proof of properties
Enterprise model verification and validation : an approach
This article presents a verification and validation approach which is used here in order to complete the classical tool box the industrial user may utilize in enterprise modeling and integration domain. This approach, which has been defined independently from any application domain is based on several formal concepts and tools presented in this paper. These concepts are property concepts, property reference matrix, properties graphs, enterprise modeling domain ontology, conceptual graphs and formal reasoning mechanisms
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Using formal methods to support testing
Formal methods and testing are two important approaches that assist in the development of high quality software. While traditionally these approaches have been seen as rivals, in recent
years a new consensus has developed in which they are seen as complementary. This article reviews the state of the art regarding ways in which the presence of a formal specification can be used to assist testing
Specification Patterns for Robotic Missions
Mobile and general-purpose robots increasingly support our everyday life,
requiring dependable robotics control software. Creating such software mainly
amounts to implementing their complex behaviors known as missions. Recognizing
the need, a large number of domain-specific specification languages has been
proposed. These, in addition to traditional logical languages, allow the use of
formally specified missions for synthesis, verification, simulation, or guiding
the implementation. For instance, the logical language LTL is commonly used by
experts to specify missions, as an input for planners, which synthesize the
behavior a robot should have. Unfortunately, domain-specific languages are
usually tied to specific robot models, while logical languages such as LTL are
difficult to use by non-experts. We present a catalog of 22 mission
specification patterns for mobile robots, together with tooling for
instantiating, composing, and compiling the patterns to create mission
specifications. The patterns provide solutions for recurrent specification
problems, each of which detailing the usage intent, known uses, relationships
to other patterns, and---most importantly---a template mission specification in
temporal logic. Our tooling produces specifications expressed in the LTL and
CTL temporal logics to be used by planners, simulators, or model checkers. The
patterns originate from 245 realistic textual mission requirements extracted
from the robotics literature, and they are evaluated upon a total of 441
real-world mission requirements and 1251 mission specifications. Five of these
reflect scenarios we defined with two well-known industrial partners developing
human-size robots. We validated our patterns' correctness with simulators and
two real robots
Model-based dependability analysis : state-of-the-art, challenges and future outlook
Abstract: Over the past two decades, the study of model-based dependability analysis has gathered significant research interest. Different approaches have been developed to automate and address various limitations of classical dependability techniques to contend with the increasing complexity and challenges of modern safety-critical system. Two leading paradigms have emerged, one which constructs predictive system failure models from component failure models compositionally using the topology of the system. The other utilizes design models - typically state automata - to explore system behaviour through fault injection. This paper reviews a number of prominent techniques under these two paradigms, and provides an insight into their working mechanism, applicability, strengths and challenges, as well as recent developments within these fields. We also discuss the emerging trends on integrated approaches and advanced analysis capabilities. Lastly, we outline the future outlook for model-based dependability analysis
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