The challenges of verifying the behaviour of robotics systems has motivated the development of various techniques and tools for supporting the advancement and verification of robotics systems. This is due to the complex nature of verifying robotics systems as part of the category of hybrid dynamical systems that combine discrete and continuous parts. In contrast to the commonly-known computer systems, robotic sys- tems operate in a physical, real-world environment that may include humans, which raises a reasonable question of concern about the safety of the systems. Currently, one of the promising solutions is effective, rigorous verification techniques and tools that verify and guarantee the safe operation of robotics systems.
Along this line, formal methods provide mathematical models that support the de- velopment of rigorous verification techniques and tools. In this work, we use formal methods for the verification of temporal specifications of robotics systems. The process algebra tock-CSP provides textual notations for modelling discrete-time behaviours, with the support of various tools for verification. Also, tock-CSP has been used to give semantics to a domain-specific language for robotics, RoboChart. Similarly, automatic verification of Timed Automata (TA) is supported by the real-time verification toolbox Uppaal that facilitates verification of temporal specifications using Time Computation Tree Logic (TCTL). Timed Automata and tock-CSP differ in both modelling and verification approaches. For instance, liveness requirements are difficult to specify with the constructs of tock-CSP, but they are easy to verify in Uppaal.
In this work, we add a step forward in translating tock-CSP into TA to take advantage of Uppaal. We have developed a translation technique and tool; our work uses rules for translating tock-CSP into a network of small TAs, which address the complexity of capturing the compositionality of tock-CSP. For the validation of our proposed con- tributions, we use an experimental approach based on finite approximations to trace sets. We consider trace semantics for validating the translation technique. Thus, we develop a technique for generating and comparing traces of tock-CSP and TA. In order to evaluate the translation technique and its corresponding tool, we use two forms of test cases: a large collection of small processes and case studies from the literature. We illustrate a plan for using mathematical proof to establish the correctness of the rules that will cover an infinite set of traces
