Formal Specification and Verification of Task Time Constraints for Real-Time Systems

Abstract

Abstract. Model-Driven Engineering enables to assess a system's model properties since the early phases of its lifecycle and to improve iteratively these models according to the verification results. Safety critical real-time systems have stringent requirements related to the specification and verification of system's task-level time constraints. The common formal methods used to assess these properties for design models rely on a translation of the user models into formal verification languages like Time Petri Net and on the expression of the required properties using Timed LTL (Linear Temporal Logic)/CTL (Computation Tree Logic) or µ-calculus. However, these logics are mainly used to assess safety and liveness properties. Their capability for expressing time related properties is more limited and can lead to combinatorial state space explosion problems during model checking. In addition, they are mainly concerned with symbolic time event-level properties without quantitative time tolerance aspects. This contribution focuses on a formal specification and verification method for system's task-level time constraints (including synchronization, coincidence, exclusion, precedence, sub-occurrence and causality) in both finite and infinite time scope. It proposes a method to translate task time constraints that cannot be assessed by common tools to verifiable time property specifications, which are composed of a set of verifiable time property patterns. These time property patterns are quantitative and independent of both the design modeling language and the verification language as soon as it provides timed elements, making the translation method reusable with different tools. Then, observer-based model checking for Time Petri Nets is used to verify these time property patterns. This contribution analyses the computational complexity and the method's performance for the various patterns. This synchronization properties' specification and verification methods have been integrated in a time property verification framework for UML-MARTE safety critical real-time systems.

Toward the tools selection in model based system engineering for embedded systems—A systematic literature review

“…For example, all selected researches have been thoroughly studied and analyzed in order to assign them to corresponding category. Similarly, each selected research is intensively studied and Di et al, 2013, Berrani et al, 2013, Stancescu et al, 2010, Ouchani et al, 2013, Bouquet et al, 2012, DeTommasi et al, 2013, Andrade et al, 2009, Bazydlo et al, 2014, Doligalski and Adamski, 2013, Mueller et al, 2010, Durand and Bonato, 2012, Moreira et al, 2010, Vidal et al, 2009, Linehan and Clarke, 2012, Herrera et al, 2014, Lecomte et al, 2011, Rafiq Quadri et al, 2012, Chen et al, 2013, Vanderperren et al, 2008, Elhaji et al, 2012, Riccobene and Scandurra, 2012Zohaib Iqbal et al, 2013, Chouali and Hammad, 2011, Doering, 2014, Ouchani et al, 2014, Telinski Wiedermann anger et al, 2013, Knorreck and Apvrille, 2011, Ge et al, 2012, Baresi et al, 2013, Huang et al, 2012, Nguyen et al, 2014, Bousse et al, 2012 Modeling 5 Gomez et al, 2012, Penil et al, 2010, Espinoza et al, 2009, Rota Sena Marques et al, 2014, Behjati et al, 2011 Property specification 2 Yin et al, 2013…”

“…Furthermore, different properties specification techniques/languages have been proposed by researchers (Yin et al, 2013;Mallet, 2012;Knorreck and Apvrille, 2011;Ge et al, 2012;Behjati et al, 2011) to model behavioral/temporal aspects. Once requirements are modeled, different model transformation techniques have been applied to develop platform specific model and/or source code generation.…”

Diagnostic Information for Compliance Checking of Temporal Compliance Requirements

“…This approach allows to check temporal compliance of a real-time extension of Dwyer's specification patterns [4]. A similar approach is followed in [6] for checking whether an extended CCSL (Clock Constraint Specification Language) specification holds in a timed Petri net; CCSL is less expressive than the constraints that can be expressed and checked with our technique.…”