Towards formal modelling and verification of pervasive computing systems

Smart systems equipped with emerging pervasive computing technologies enable people with limitations to live in their homes independently. However, lack of guarantees for correctness prevent such system to be widely used. Analysing the system with regard to correctness requirements is a challenging task due to the complexity of the system and its various unpredictable faults. In this work, we propose to use formal methods to analyse pervasive computing (PvC) systems. Firstly, a formal modelling framework is proposed to cover the main characteristics of such systems (e.g., context-awareness, concurrent communications, layered architectures). Secondly, we identify the safety requirements (e.g., free of deadlocks and conflicts) and specify them as safety and liveness properties. Furthermore, based on the modelling framework, we propose an approach of verifying reasoning rules which are used in the middleware for perceiving the environment and making adaptation decisions. Finally, we demonstrate our ideas using a case study of a smart healthcare system. Experimental results show the usefulness of our approach in exploring system behaviours and revealing system design flaws such as information inconsistency and conflicting reminder services.No Full Tex

Hybrid Multirate PALS

Multirate PALS reduces the design and verification of a virtually synchronous distributed real-time system to the design and verification of the underlying synchronous model. This paper introduces Hybrid Multirate PALS, which extends Multirate PALS to virtually synchronous distributed multirate hybrid systems, such as aircraft and power plant control systems. Such a system may have interrelated local physical environments, each of whose continuous behaviors may periodically change due to actuator commands. We define continuous interrelated local physical environments, and the synchronous and asynchronous Hybrid Multirate PALS models, and give a trace equivalence result relating a synchronous and an asynchronous model. Finally, we illustrate by an example how invariants can be verified using SMT solving.110Nsciescopu

Formal patterns for multirate distributed real-time systems

Distributed real-time systems (DRTSs), such as avionics and automotive systems, are very hard to design and verify. Besides the difficulties of asynchrony, clock skews, and network delays, an additional source of complexity comes from the multirate nature of many such systems, which must implement several levels of hierarchical control at different rates. In previous work we showed how the design and implementation of a single-rate DRTS which should behave in a virtually synchronous way can be drastically simplified by the PALS model transformation that generates the DRTS from a much simpler synchronous model. In this work we present several simple model transformations and a multirate extension of the PALS pattern which can be combined to reduce the design and verification of a virtually synchronous multirate DRTS to the much simpler task of specifying and verifying a single synchronous system. We illustrate the ideas with a multirate hierarchical control system where a central controller orchestrates control systems in the ailerons and tail of an airplane to perform turning maneuvers. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.1156sciescopu

Verifying hierarchical Ptolemy II discrete-event models using Real-Time Maude

This paper defines a real-time rewriting logic semantics for a significant subset of Ptolemy II discrete-event models. This is a challenging task, since such models combine a synchronous fixed-point semantics with hierarchical structure, explicit time, and a rich expression language. The code generation features of Ptolemy II have been leveraged to automatically synthesize a Real-Time Maude verification model from a Ptolemy II design model, and to integrate Real-Time Maude verification of the synthesized model into Ptolemy II. This enables a model-engineering process that combines the convenience of Ptolemy II DE modeling and simulation with formal verification in Real-Time Maude. We illustrate such formal verification of Ptolemy II models with three case studies. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.111016sciescopu