An approach to monitoring and assertion-checking of real-time specifications

The paper describes the development of a monitoring and assertion checking tool, MAC, which supports monitoring of symbolic execution traces generated by the Modechart Toolset, permitting testing of specifications early in the design phase and providing a mechanism for evaluating properties of the system on a particular execution trace. This approach avoids many of the difficulties of run time monitoring and testing such as interference and the probe effect. Monitoring and assertion checking capabilities are provided by the automatic translation of assertions in a declarative language (such as Real Time Logic) into monitoring fragments, written in Modechart, which augment the original specification to perform monitoring and assertion checking during simulation.