Robotics and Integrated Formal Methods: Necessity meets Opportunity
This addresses the challenge of verifying complex robotic systems for researchers and developers, but it is incremental as it builds on existing formal methods integration.
The paper argues that the complexity of robotic systems, which combine hardware, software, and real-world interactions, necessitates the integration of diverse formal methods for development, verification, and certification, and proposes robotics as a catalyst to advance integrated formal methods research.
Robotic systems are multi-dimensional entities, combining both hardware and software, that are heavily dependent on, and influenced by, interactions with the real world. They can be variously categorised as embedded, cyberphysical, real-time, hybrid, adaptive and even autonomous systems, with a typical robotic system being likely to contain all of these aspects. The techniques for developing and verifying each of these system varieties are often quite distinct. This, together with the sheer complexity of robotic systems, leads us to argue that diverse formal techniques must be integrated in order to develop, verify, and provide certification evidence for, robotic systems. Furthermore, we propose the fast evolving field of robotics as an ideal catalyst for the advancement of integrated formal methods research, helping to drive the field in new and exciting directions and shedding light on the development of large-scale, dynamic, complex systems.