Integrating the PVSio-web modelling and prototyping environment with Overture

Tools are needed that overcome the barriers preventing development teams using formal verification technologies. We present our work integrating PVSio-web with the Overture development and analysis environment for VDM. PVSio-web is a graphical environment for modelling and prototyping interactive systems. Prototypes developed within PVSio-web can closely resemble the visual appearance and behaviour of a real system. The behaviour of the prototypes is entirely driven by executable formal models. These formal models can be generated automatically from Emucharts, graphical diagrams based on the Statechart notation. Emucharts conveniently hides aspects of the formal syntax that create barriers for developers and domain experts who are new to formal methods. Here, we present the implementation of a VDM-SL model generator for Emucharts. An example is presented based on a medical device. It demonstrates the benefits of using Emucharts to develop a formal model, how PVSio-web can be used to perform lightweight formal analysis, and how the developed VDM-SL model generator can be used to produce a model that can be further analysed within Overture.