Heinz Schmidt

Maria Spichkova, Heinz Schmidt

In this paper we present a formal framework for analysis and optimisation of the requirements specifications of systems developed to apply in several countries. As different countries typically have different regulations/laws as well as different cultural restrictions, the corresponding specific requirements might differ in each particular case. Our framework provides a basis for (1) systematic and formal analysis of the diversity and interdependencies within the sets of the requirements, to avoid non-compliance, contradictions and redundancies; (2) corresponding systematic process for change management in the case of global system development.

Heinz Schmidt, Maria Spichkova

This paper presents a new approach and design model targeting hybrid designer- and operator-defined performance budgets for timing and energy consumption. The approach is based on Petri Nets formalism. As the cognitive load is typically high while using formal methods, this increases the chances of mistakes. Our approach is focused on the readability aspects and aims to decrease the cognitive load of developers. We illustrate the proposed approach on example of a sample embedded multi-media system, a modern digital camera.

Maria Spichkova, Heinz Schmidt

We present our ongoing work on requirements specification and analysis for the geographically distributed software and systems. Developing software and systems within/for different countries or states or even within/for different organisations means that the requirements to them can differ in each particular case. These aspects naturally impact on the software architecture and on the development process as a whole. The challenge is to deal with this diversity in a systematic way, avoiding contradictions and non-compliance. In this paper, we present a formal framework for the analysis of the requirements diversity, which comes from the differences in the regulations, laws and cultural aspects for different countries or organisations. The framework also provides the corresponding architectural view and the methods for requirements structuring and optimisation.

Maria Spichkova, Heinz Schmidt

In many cases we need to represent on the same abstraction level not only system components but also processes within the system, and if for both representation different frameworks are used, the system model becomes hard to read and to understand. We suggest a solution how to cover this gap and to reconcile component and process views on system representation: a formal framework that gives the advantage of solving design problems for large-scale component systems.

Jan Olaf Blech, Maria Spichkova, Ian Peake et al.

We describe our ongoing work and view on simulation, validation and visualization of cyber-physical systems in industrial automation during development, operation and maintenance. System models may represent an existing physical part - for example an existing robot installation - and a software simulated part - for example a possible future extension. We call such systems cyber-virtual systems. In this paper, we present the existing VITELab infrastructure for visualization tasks in industrial automation. The new methodology for simulation and validation motivated in this paper integrates this infrastructure. We are targeting scenarios, where industrial sites which may be in remote locations are modeled and visualized from different sites anywhere in the world. Complementing the visualization work, here, we are also concentrating on software modeling challenges related to cyber-virtual systems and simulation, testing, validation and verification techniques for them. Software models of industrial sites require behavioural models of the components of the industrial sites such as models for tools, robots, workpieces and other machinery as well as communication and sensor facilities. Furthermore, collaboration between sites is an important goal of our work.

Jan Olaf Blech, Heinz Schmidt

In this report, we present work towards a framework for modeling and checking behavior of spatially distributed component systems. Design goals of our framework are the ability to model spatial behavior in a component oriented, simple and intuitive way, the possibility to automatically analyse and verify systems and integration possibilities with other modeling and verification tools. We present examples and the verification steps necessary to prove properties such as range coverage or the absence of collisions between components and technical details.

Fenglin Han, Jan Olaf Blech, Peter Herrmann et al.

Using probabilities in the formal-methods-based development of safety-critical software has quickened interests in academia and industry. We address this area by our model-driven engineering method for reactive systems SPACE and its tool-set Reactive Blocks that provide an extension to support the modeling and verification of real-time behaviors. The approach facilitates the composition of system models from reusable building blocks as well as the verification of functional and real-time properties and the automatic generation of Java code. In this paper, we describe the extension of the tool-set to enable the modeling and verification of probabilistic real-time system behavior with the focus on spatial properties that ensure system safety. In particular, we incorporate descriptions of probabilistic behavior into our Reactive Blocks models and integrate the model checker PRISM which allows to verify that a real-time system satisfies certain safety properties with a given probability. Moreover, we consider the spatial implication of probabilistic system specifications by integrating the spatial verification tool BeSpaceD and give an automatic approach to translate system specifications to the input languages of PRISM and BeSpaceD. The approach is highlighted by an example.