Incremental specification with SCTL/MUS-T: a case study

The past decade witnessed a great advance in the field of timed formal methods for the specification and analysis of real-time and safety-critical systems. In this context, timed automata and real-time temporal logics provide a simple, and yet general, way to model and specify the behavior of these systems. At the same time, iterative and incremental development has been massively adopted in professional practice. In order to get closer to this current trend, timed formal methods should be adapted to such lifecycle structures, getting over their traditional role of verifying that a model meets a set of fixed requirements. In the pursuit of this ultimate aim, we propose SCTL/MUS-T, a timed methodology in which many-valuedness let deal with both the uncertainty and the disagreement which are pervasive and desirable in an iterative and incremental process. To illustrate the main ideas behind SCTL/MUS-T methodology this paper focuses on the specification, synthesis and verification of the well known steam-boiler case study.

[1]  R. Alur.  Techniques for automatic verification of real-time systems , 1991 .

[2]  Jonathan S. Ostroff,et al.  Formal methods for the specification and design of real-time safety critical systems , 1992, J. Syst. Softw..

[3]  José Juan Pazos-Arias,et al.  Formalizing incremental design in real-time area: SCTL/MUS-T , 2002, Proceedings 26th Annual International Computer Software and Applications.

[4]  Egon Börger,et al.  Formal methods for industrial applications : specifying and programming the steam boiler control , 1996 .

[5]  Jorge García Duque,et al.  SCTL-MUS: A Formal Methodology for Software Development of Distributed Systems. A Case Study , 2001, Formal Aspects of Computing.

[6]  P. Varaiya,et al.  Discretization of timed automata , 1994, Proceedings of 1994 33rd IEEE Conference on Decision and Control.

[7]  Louise E. Moser,et al.  A graphical environment for the design of concurrent real-time systems , 1997, TSEM.

[8]  Thomas A. Henzinger,et al.  Logics and Models of Real Time: A Survey , 1991, REX Workshop.

[9]  Rajeev Alur,et al.  Model-Checking in Dense Real-time , 1993, Inf. Comput..

[10]  L. Bolc,et al.  Many-Valued Logics , 1992 .

[11]  Axel van Lamsweerde,et al.  Inferring Declarative Requirements Specifications from Operational Scenarios , 1998, IEEE Trans. Software Eng..

[12]  Bashar Nuseibeh,et al.  An empirical investigation of multiple viewpoint reasoning in requirements engineering , 1999, Proceedings IEEE International Symposium on Requirements Engineering (Cat. No.PR00188).

[13]  Insup Lee,et al.  A graphical property specification language , 1997, Proceedings 1997 High-Assurance Engineering Workshop.

[14]  Patrice Godefroid,et al.  Model Checking Partial State Spaces with 3-Valued Temporal Logics , 1999, CAV.

[15]  Scott A. Smolka,et al.  Local Model Checking for Real-Time Systems (Extended Abstract) , 1995, CAV.

[16]  Kim G. Larsen,et al.  Timed Modal Specification - Theory and Tools , 1993, CAV.

[17]  Radha Jagadeesan,et al.  Modal Transition Systems: A Foundation for Three-Valued Program Analysis , 2001, ESOP.

[18]  Marsha Chechik,et al.  Efficient Multiple-Valued Model-Checking Using Lattice Representations , 2001, CONCUR.

[19]  Reinhard Gotzhein,et al.  Reuse in Requirements Engineering: Discovery and Application of a Real-Time Requirement Pattern , 1998, FTRTFT.

[20]  Marsha Chechik,et al.  A framework for multi-valued reasoning over inconsistent viewpoints , 2001, Proceedings of the 23rd International Conference on Software Engineering. ICSE 2001.

[21]  Ana Fernández Vilas.  Tratamiento formal de sistemas con requisitos de tiempo real críticos , 2002 .

[22]  Amir Pnueli,et al.  On Discretization of Delays in Timed Automata and Digital Circuits , 1998, CONCUR.

[23]  José Juan Pazos-Arias,et al.  Extending Timed Automaton and Real-Time Logic to Many-Valued Reasoning , 2002, FTRTFT.

[24]  Bashar Nuseibeh,et al.  Making inconsistency respectable in software development , 2001, J. Syst. Softw..

[25]  John Mylopoulos,et al.  RULE-BASED DETECTION OF INCONSISTENCY IN UML MODELS , 2002 .

[26]  Dov M. Gabbay,et al.  MetateM: An introduction , 1995, Formal Aspects of Computing.

[27]  Martin S. Feather,et al.  Utilizing Scenarios in the Software Development Process , 1993, Information System Development Process.

[28]  Jorge García Duque,et al.  Requirements specification evolution in a multi-perspective environment , 2002, Proceedings 26th Annual International Computer Software and Applications.

[29]  Fred B. Schneider,et al.  Avoiding the Undefined by Underspecification , 1995, Computer Science Today.

[30]  Thomas A. Henzinger,et al.  Temporal Proof Methodologies for Timed Transition Systems , 1994, Inf. Comput..