ViSpec: A graphical tool for elicitation of MTL requirements

One of the main barriers preventing widespread use of formal methods is the elicitation of formal specifications. Formal specifications facilitate the testing and verification process for safety critical robotic systems. However, handling the intricacies of formal languages is difficult and requires a high level of expertise in formal logics that many system developers do not have. In this work, we present a graphical tool designed for the development and visualization of formal specifications by people that do not have training in formal logic. The tool enables users to develop specifications using a graphical formalism which is then automatically translated to Metric Temporal Logic (MTL). In order to evaluate the effectiveness of our tool, we have also designed and conducted a usability study with cohorts from the academic student community and industry. Our results indicate that both groups were able to define formal requirements with high levels of accuracy. Finally, we present applications of our tool for defining specifications for operation of robotic surgery and autonomous quadcopter safe operation.Comment: Technical report for the paper to be published in the 2015 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems held in Hamburg, Germany. Includes 10 pages and 19 figure

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

Beyond information extraction: The role of ontology in military report processing

Information extraction tools like SMES transform natural language into formal representation, e.g. into feature structures. Doing so, these tools exploit and apply linguistic knowledge about the syntactic and morphological regularities of the language used. However, these tools apply semantic as well as pragmatic knowledge only partially at best. Automatic processing of military reports has to result in a visualization of the reports content by map as well as in an actualization of the underlying database in order to allow for the actualization of the common operational picture. Normally, however, the information provided by the result of the information extraction is not explicit enough for visualization processes and database insertions. This originates from the reports themselves that are elliptical, ambiguous, and vague. In order to overcome this obstacle, the situational context and thus semantic and pragmatic aspects have to be taken into account. In the paper at hand, we present a system that uses an ontological module to integrate semantic and pragmatic knowledge. The result of the completion contains all the specifications to allow for a visualization of the report’s content on a map as well as for a database actualization

Early Requirements Validation with 3D Worlds

It is a well-known fact the real significance of correctly determining requirements of a system at the very beginning of the development process. Indeed, experience demonstrates that the incorrect definition of requirements leads to development of deficient systems, increases the cost of its development or even causes projects to fail. Thus, it is crucial for clients to verify that the planned system satisfies their needs. In order to help users in the process of requirements understanding and validation this work proposes using 3D visualization techniques. The use of these techniques can reduce the communication gap between clients and developers resulting in a much more effective process of requirements validation. The approach tries to take advantage of the benefits of the 3D visualization, complementing this with the advantages of formal specifications. The approach proposes the use of formal specifications in a lighter way. This means that no formal reasoning (theorem proving) is carried out to check the properties of the specified system and the emphasis is focused on the execution and animation of the specification for early validation. A prototype tool that materializes the proposal was developed. The tool allows specifying the requirements in the formal language Z, defining a graphical representation of them and creating a 3D animated visualization of their execution through which the users can validate them.Fil: Teyseyre, Alfredo Raul. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Tandil. Instituto Superior de Ingeniería del Software. Universidad Nacional del Centro de la Provincia de Buenos Aires. Instituto Superior de Ingeniería del Software; ArgentinaFil: Campo, Marcelo Ricardo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Tandil. Instituto Superior de Ingeniería del Software. Universidad Nacional del Centro de la Provincia de Buenos Aires. Instituto Superior de Ingeniería del Software; Argentin

Early Requirements Validation with 3D Worlds

It is a well-known fact the real significance of correctly determining requirements of a system at the very beginning of the development process. Indeed, experience demonstrates that the incorrect definition of requirements leads to development of deficient systems, increases the cost of its development or even causes projects to fail. Thus, it is crucial for clients to verify that the planned system satisfies their needs. In order to help users in the process of requirements understanding and validation this work proposes using 3D visualization techniques. The use of these techniques can reduce the communication gap between clients and developers resulting in a much more effective process of requirements validation. The approach tries to take advantage of the benefits of the 3D visualization, complementing this with the advantages of formal specifications. The approach proposes the use of formal specifications in a lighter way. This means that no formal reasoning (theorem proving) is carried out to check the properties of the specified system and the emphasis is focused on the execution and animation of the specification for early validation. A prototype tool that materializes the proposal was developed. The tool allows specifying the requirements in the formal language Z, defining a graphical representation of them and creating a 3D animated visualization of their execution through which the users can validate them.Fil: Teyseyre, Alfredo Raul. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Tandil. Instituto Superior de Ingeniería del Software. Universidad Nacional del Centro de la Provincia de Buenos Aires. Instituto Superior de Ingeniería del Software; ArgentinaFil: Campo, Marcelo Ricardo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Tandil. Instituto Superior de Ingeniería del Software. Universidad Nacional del Centro de la Provincia de Buenos Aires. Instituto Superior de Ingeniería del Software; Argentin

3D Requirements Visualization

The importance of correctly determining the requirements of a system at the very beginning of the development process it is a well known fact. Experience shows that the incorrect definition of the requirements leads to the development of deficient systems, increases the cost of its development or even cause projects to fail. Therefore it is crucial for the clients to verify that the planned system satisfies their needs. This means that the system must be described in a form that clients can clearly understand it. In this context, visualization techniques appear as a useful tool to help the users in the process of requirements understanding and validation. This work proposes the use of 3D visualization techniques to validate the requirements of a system with the user. The use of these techniques can reduce the communication gap between the clients and the developers resulting in a much more effective process of requirements validation. The approach tries to take advantage of the benefits of the 3D visualization, complementing this with the advantages of formal specifications. A tool, called ReqViz3D, that materializes the proposal was developed. This tool allows to specify the requirements in the formal language Z, define a graphical representation of them, and create a 3D animated visualization of theirs execution through which the users can validate them.Eje: VisualizaciónRed de Universidades con Carreras en Informática (RedUNCI

Automated Visualization of Input / Output for Processes in SOFL Formal Specifications

While formal specification is regarded as an effective means to capture accurate requirements and design, validation of the specifications remains a challenge. Specification animation has been proposed to tackle the challenge, but lacking an effective representation of the input / output data in the animation can considerably limit the understanding of the animation by clients. In this paper, we put forward a tool supported technique for visualization of the input / output data of processes in SOFL formal specifications. After discussing the motives of our work, we describe how data of each kind of data type available in the SOFL language can be visualized to facilitate the representation and understanding of input / output data. We also present a supporting tool for the technique and a case study to demonstrate the usability and effectiveness of our proposed technique

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