Computer Games as Virtual Environments for Safety-Critical Software Validation

Abstract

Computer games became an inseparable part of everyday life in modern society and the time people spend playing them every day is increasing. This trend caused a noticeable research activity focused on utilizing the time spent playing in a meaningful way, for example to help solving scientific problems or tasks related to computer systems development. In this paper we present one contribution to this activity, a software system consisting of a modified version of the Open Rails train simulator and an application called TS2JavaConn, which allows to use separately developed software controllers with the simulator. The system is intended for validation of controllers developed by formal methods. The paper describes the overall architecture of the system and operation of its components. It also compares the system with other approaches to purposeful utilization of computer games, specifies suitable formal methods and illustrates its intended use on an example.

Learning software for handling the mathematical expressions

“…In the educational process, we consider adequately educating and training them in the basics of formal logic and formal language semantics to be a very important role. In this manner, the tools support software development on the basis of formal methods [3,4]. All of these tools and techniques are rooted in the formal semantics of the particular programming languages.…”