From Informal Requirements to Property-Driven Formal Validation

Flaws in requirements may have severe impacts on the subsequent phases of the development flow. However, an effective validation of requirements can be considered a largely open problem. In this paper, we propose a new methodology for requirements validation, based on the use of formal methods. The methodology consists of three main phases: first, an informal analysis is carried out, resulting in a structured version of the requirements, where each fragment is classified according to a fixed taxonomy. In the second phase, each fragment is then mapped onto a subset of UML, with a precise semantics, and enriched with static and temporal constraints. The third phase consists of the application of specialized formal analysis techniques, optimized to deal with properties (rather than with models).