Formal verification of a space system's user Interface with the IVY workbench

This paper describes the application of the IVY workbench to the formal analysis of a user interface for a safety-critical aerospace system. The operation manual of the system was used as a requirement document, and this made it possible to build a reference model of the user interface, focusing on navigation between displays, the information provided by each display, and how they are interrelated. Usability-related property specification patterns were then used to derive relevant properties for verification. This paper discusses both the modeling strategy and the analytical results found using the IVY workbench. The purpose of the reference model is to provide a standard against which future versions of the interface may be assessed.EPSRC - Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council(EP/G059063/1)This work was partly funded by project ref. NORTE-07-0124-FEDER-000062, co-financed by the North Portugal Regional Operational Programme (ON.2 O Novo Norte), under the National Strategic Reference Framework (NSRF), through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), and by national funds, through the Portuguese foundation for science and technology (FCT)

The management of knowledge and technologies in a space program

This paper presents an ongoing work at the Institute of Aeronautics and Space (IAE) to provide a process and a system to support the management of knowledge and new technologies applied to the conception and development of the Brazilian Satellite Launcher Program. This management is not only necessary to organize the actual research efforts but also to identify communalities and necessities for the strategic planning of future research projects and development activities. The results of the research projects are usually new technologies that ought to be employed in the development of the Launcher Program. The proposed knowledge management system will not only enable assessing these new technologies but also help in defining and planning the research topics in each important area of this multidisciplinary program, according to the Institute’s strategic goals and space mission

Applying UML-based Formal Specification, Validation, and Verification to Space Flight Control System and Defense Software

This report presents the process and results of a formal computer-aided Specification, Validation and Verification (SV&V) of two mission and safety critical projects: the Brazilian Satellite Launcher flight software, and the Department of Defense's Multifunctional Information Distribution System (MIDS) controller. The Specification, Validation, and Verification (SV&V) process begins with a system requirement analysis and Natural Language (NL) specification. UML statechart-formal specification assertions are then created using the StateRover SV&V specification environment; these assertions formally capture the NL requirements. The assertions are validated against the NL and cognitive requirements using JUnit-based testing within the StateRover SV&V environment. Finally, Runtime Verification (RV) is performed on the target system under test (SUT). The RV phase is based on log files created by automatically instrumenting source code files, building and executing them on the VxWorks-based target thereby creating log files, importing resulting log files into the StateRover SV&V environment and executing them as JUnit tests against the assertions.Graduate School of Operational and Information SciencesApproved for public release; distribution is unlimited

End-to-end formal specification, validation and verification process: a case study of space flight software

The article of record as published may be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/JSYST.2012.2220591The quality of requirements and the effectiveness of verification and validation (V&V) techniques in guaranteeing that a final system reflects its established requirements have a direct influence on the quality and dependability of the delivered system. The V&V process can be efficient from a managerial point of view, but ineffective from a technical perspective, and vice versa. This paper presents an end-to-end formal computer-aided specification, validation, and verification (SV&V) process, whose feasibility and effectiveness were evaluated against the flight software for the Brazilian Satellite Launcher. Unified modeling language (UML) statechart assertions, scenario-based validation, and runtime verification are used to formally specify and verify the system, and metrics of the ongoing process and its V&V results are collected during the application of the process. The results of the case study indicate that the process and its computer-aided environment were both technically feasible to apply and managerially effective, will likely scale well to cater to SV&V of mission-critical systems that have a larger number of behavioral requirements, and can be used for V&V in a distributed development environment