The engineering of generic requirements for failure management

Abstract

We consider the failure detection and management function for engine control systems as an application domain where product line engineering is indicated. The need to develop a generic requirement set - for subsequent system instantiation - is complicated by the addition of the high levels of verification demanded by this safety-critical domain, subject to avionics industry standards. We present our case study experience in this area as a candidate methodology for the engineering, validation and verification of generic requirements using domain engineering and Formal Methods techniques and tools. For a defined class of systems, the case study produces a generic requirement set in UML and an example instantiation in tabular form. Domain analysis and engineering produce a model which is integrated with the formal specification/ verification method B by the use of our UML-B profile. The formal verification both of the generic requirement set, and of a simple system instance, is demonstrated using our U2B and ProB tools. This work is a demonstrator for a tool-supported method which will be an output of EU project RODIN. The method, based in the dominant UML standard, will exploit formal verification technology largely as a "black box" for this novel combination of product line, failure management and safety-critical engineering