End-to-End Formal Specification, Validation, and Verification Process: A Case Study of Space Flight Software

Abstract

The 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 computeraided 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.

Formal and Model Driven Design of the Bright Light Therapy System Luxamet

“…On a very basic level, these fault states can be detected by formalizing the design, because formal models are more abstract than the implementation. This abstraction makes the models much more discussable and accessible even for nonspecialists [19,20]. It also prevents designers from introducing a fault state due to a lack of overview.…”