Practical Formal Specification for Embedded Control Systems

Iwu, Frantz; Galloway, Andy; Toyn, Ian; McDermid, John

doi:10.1016/s1474-6670(17)36113-x

Cited by 7 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 1 publication

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“…The drawback is a loss of direct visibility of data flow, so we will not incorporate it in our work. The use of pre-/post-condition contracts as verifiable interface specifications for Subsystems has also been proposed [4,5,14]. While this design-by-contract approach provides a way of ensuring desired behaviour at the Subsystem-level, our approach aims to document the interface syntax in a complete fashion at the Model-level.…”

Section: Interfacesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Supporting Modularity in Simulink Models

Jaskolka¹,

Pantelic²,

Wassyng³

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Model-Based Development (MBD) is widely used for embedded controls development, with Matlab Simulink being one of the most used modelling environments in industry. As with all software, Simulink models are subject to evolution over their lifetime and must be maintained. Modularity is a fundamental software engineering principle facilitating the construction of complex software, and is used in textual languages such as C. However, as Simulink is a graphical modelling language, it is not currently well understood how modularity can be leveraged in development with Simulink, nor whether it can be supported with current Simulink modelling constructs. This paper presents an effective way of achieving modularity in Simulink by introducing the concept of a Simulink module. The effectiveness of the approach is measured using well-known indicators of modularity, including coupling and cohesion, cyclomatic complexity, and information hiding ability. A syntactic interface is defined in order to represent all data flow across the module boundary. Four modelling guidelines are also presented to encourage best practice. Also, a custom tool that supports the modelling of Simulink modules is described. Finally, this work is demonstrated and evaluated on a real-world example from the nuclear domain.

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Section: Interfacesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Supporting Modularity in Simulink Models

Jaskolka¹,

Pantelic²,

Wassyng³

et al. 2020

Preprint

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“…Our aim has been to add formalism to MSS specifications in a non-obtrusive manner so that the approach can be used by those already familiar with the tool without the need for substantial retraining. There are three core elements to PFS [11]:…”

Section: Progress On Practical Formal Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

On the Formal Development of Safety-Critical Software

Galloway

Iwu

McDermid

et al. 2008

Verified Software: Theories, Tools, Experiments

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Abstract. We reflect on the formal development models applicable to embedded control systems in light of our experience with safety-critical applications from the aerospace domain. This leads us to propose two complementary enhancements to Parnas' four-variable model, one elaborating the structure outside the control computer, and the other elaborating the structure inside the control computer. We then identify several challenges which illustrate why formal development in this domain is difficult, and report our own progress in meeting these challenges. Finally, we outline the residual issues, which form the agenda for our future work.

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“…The analyses were designed as part of the Practical Formal Specification (PFS) method [6,10]. The PFS method advocates development of expectations in parallel with the state machine, with both contributing to the meaning of the model.…”

Section: Observationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Formal Validation of Hierarchical State Machines against Expectations

Toyn

Galloway

2007

2007 Australian Software Engineering Conference (ASWEC'07)

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This paper explains some analyses that can be performed on a hierarchical finite state machine to validate that it performs as intended. Such a hierarchical state machine has transitions between states, triggered by conditions over inputs, with outputs determined per state in terms of inputs.Intentions are captured per state as expectations on input values. These expectations are expressed using the same condition language as transition triggers, extended to constrain rates of change as well as ranges. The analyses determine whether the expectations are consistent and whether the state machine conforms to the expectations.For the analyses to find no problems, the explicit expectations on the root state will be at least as strong as the implicit expectations of the state machine. One way of using the analyses is to reveal these implicit expectations.The analyses have been automated for statecharts built with The MathWorks' Stateflow tool.

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Practical Formal Specification for Embedded Control Systems

Cited by 7 publications

References 1 publication

Supporting Modularity in Simulink Models

Supporting Modularity in Simulink Models

On the Formal Development of Safety-Critical Software

Formal Validation of Hierarchical State Machines against Expectations

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