Security-Minded Verification of Space Systems

Maple, Carsten; Bradbury, Matthew; Yuan, Hu; Farrell, Marie; Dixon, Clare; Fisher, Michael; Atmaca, Ugur Ilker

doi:10.1109/aero47225.2020.9172563

Cited by 14 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 53 publications

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“…Our definition of requirements for this system followed a usual, safety-focused approach. However, cyber-security is increasingly becoming a concern for space systems and, as future work, we intend to analyse and verify requirements of this system related to security, taking inspiration from (Farrell et al, 2019a) and (Maple et al, 2020).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Formal Modelling and Runtime Verification of Autonomous Grasping for Active Debris Removal

et al. 2022

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Active debris removal in space has become a necessary activity to maintain and facilitate orbital operations. Current approaches tend to adopt autonomous robotic systems which are often furnished with a robotic arm to safely capture debris by identifying a suitable grasping point. These systems are controlled by mission-critical software, where a software failure can lead to mission failure which is difficult to recover from since the robotic systems are not easily accessible to humans. Therefore, verifying that these autonomous robotic systems function correctly is crucial. Formal verification methods enable us to analyse the software that is controlling these systems and to provide a proof of correctness that the software obeys its requirements. However, robotic systems tend not to be developed with verification in mind from the outset, which can often complicate the verification of the final algorithms and systems. In this paper, we describe the process that we used to verify a pre-existing system for autonomous grasping which is to be used for active debris removal in space. In particular, we formalise the requirements for this system using the Formal Requirements Elicitation Tool (FRET). We formally model specific software components of the system and formally verify that they adhere to their corresponding requirements using the Dafny program verifier. From the original FRET requirements, we synthesise runtime monitors using ROSMonitoring and show how these can provide runtime assurances for the system. We also describe our experimentation and analysis of the testbed and the associated simulation. We provide a detailed discussion of our approach and describe how the modularity of this particular autonomous system simplified the usually complex task of verifying a system post-development.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Formal Modelling and Runtime Verification of Autonomous Grasping for Active Debris Removal

et al. 2022

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“…While such threat analysis has often been distinct, recent work in this vein seeks to link threat analysis with formal verification by defining a methodology whereby security properties are formalised so that they can be adequately verified [111,114].…”

Section: Securitymentioning

confidence: 99%

An Overview of Verification and Validation Challenges for Inspection Robots

et al. 2021

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The advent of sophisticated robotics and AI technology makes sending humans into hazardous and distant environments to carry out inspections increasingly avoidable. Being able to send a robot, rather than a human, into a nuclear facility or deep space is very appealing. However, building these robotic systems is just the start and we still need to carry out a range of verification and validation tasks to ensure that the systems to be deployed are as safe and reliable as possible. Based on our experience across three research and innovation hubs within the UK’s “Robots for a Safer World” programme, we present an overview of the relevant techniques and challenges in this area. As the hubs are active across nuclear, offshore, and space environments, this gives a breadth of issues common to many inspection robots.

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“…However, with the advancement of technology in the space domain, it is becoming apparent that security-related properties are also crucial. Recent work in this vein seeks to integrate security properties into the formal verification effort by proposing a detailed security-minded verification methodology [5].…”

Section: Verification and Validation (Vandv)mentioning

confidence: 99%

A Review of Verification and Validation for Space Autonomous Systems

et al. 2021

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Purpose of Review The deployment of hardware (e.g., robots, satellites, etc.) to space is a costly and complex endeavor. It is of extreme importance that on-board systems are verified and validated through a variety of verification and validation techniques, especially in the case of autonomous systems. In this paper, we discuss a number of approaches from the literature that are relevant or directly applied to the verification and validation of systems in space, with an emphasis on autonomy. Recent Findings Despite advances in individual verification and validation techniques, there is still a lack of approaches that aim to combine different forms of verification in order to obtain system-wide verification of modular autonomous systems. Summary This systematic review of the literature includes the current advances in the latest approaches using formal methods for static verification (model checking and theorem proving) and runtime verification, the progress achieved so far in the verification of machine learning, an overview of the landscape in software testing, and the importance of performing compositional verification in modular systems. In particular, we focus on reporting the use of these techniques for the verification and validation of systems in space with an emphasis on autonomy, as well as more general techniques (such as in the aeronautical domain) that have been shown to have potential value in the verification and validation of autonomous systems in space.

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Security-Minded Verification of Space Systems

Abstract: Please refer to published version for the most recent bibliographic citation information. If a published version is known of, the repository item page linked to above, will contain details on accessing it.

Cited by 14 publications

References 53 publications

Formal Modelling and Runtime Verification of Autonomous Grasping for Active Debris Removal

Formal Modelling and Runtime Verification of Autonomous Grasping for Active Debris Removal

An Overview of Verification and Validation Challenges for Inspection Robots

A Review of Verification and Validation for Space Autonomous Systems

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