Formalizing UML State Machines for Automated Verification – A Survey

Abstract

The Unified Modeling Language (UML) is a standard for modeling dynamic systems. UML behavioral state machines are used for modeling the dynamic behavior of object-oriented designs. The UML specification, maintained by the Object Management Group (OMG), is documented in natural language (in contrast to formal language). The inherent ambiguity of natural languages may introduce inconsistencies in the resulting state machine model. Formalizing UML state machine specification aims at solving the ambiguity problem and at providing a uniform view to software designers and developers. Such a formalization also aims at providing a foundation for automatic verification of UML state machine models, which can help to find software design vulnerabilities at an early stage and reduce the development cost. We provide here a comprehensive survey of existing work from 1997 to 2021 related to formalizing UML state machine semantics for the purpose of conducting model checking at the design stage.

Pragmatic verification and validation of industrial executable SysML models

“…To complement these standards, researchers have proposed to map UML/SysML to a formal analysis domain. 34 These formalizations differ in the types of supported elements: ranging from a handful of elements in activity diagrams 35 and state machines 36 to rich feature support for UML state machines 37 . The approaches also use several alternatives for the mathematical basis: for example, Petri nets, 38 PROMELA, 39 CML 35 or Kripke structures.…”

“…40 However, these formalizations are usually not complete. 34,36 According to our experience, in an industrial setting, further practical perspectives need to be considered apart from the aforementioned theoretical ones. (1) In a large organization, model users might interpret the same diagram differently or use certain modeling constructs in conflicting ways.…”

“…The approaches also use several alternatives for the mathematical basis: for example, Petri nets, 38 PROMELA, 39 CML 35 or Kripke structures 40 . However, these formalizations are usually not complete 34,36 …”