Model checking underwater vehicles control architectures: a formal specification based approach. / Checagem de arquiteturas de controle de veículos submarinos: uma abordagem baseada em especificações formais.

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2009

RESUMO

The development of control architectures for Underwater Vehicles is a complex task. These control architectures might be chracterised by the following attributes: real-time, multitasking, concurrency, and distributed over communication networks. In this scenario, we have multiple processes running in parallel, possibly distributed, and engaging in communication between each other. In this context, the behavioural model might lead to phenomena like deadlocks, livelocks, race conditions, among others. In order to try to minimize the effects of such difficulties, in this work a method for model checking control architectures of underwater vehicles based on formal specifications is presented. The chosen formal specification language is CSP-OZ, a combination of CSP and Object-Z. Object-Z is an object-oriented extension of Z for the specification of predicates, typically, data pre, post and invariant conditions. CSP (Communicating Sequential Process) is a process algebra developed to describe behavioural models of parallel process. The model checking of formal specifications is a task of reasoning on specifications in which a system verifies certain properties by means of an exhaustive search of all possible states that a system could enter during its execution. In this context, it is possible to check about correctness, liveness, deadlock, etc. Also, one can relate two different specifications in order to check a refinement ordering. For the specifications, the model checker FDR of Formal Systems Ltd. is utilised. The implementation is developed using an ADA language profile called RavenSPARK, a union of the Ravenscar profile (developed at the University of York) and the SPARK language (a subset of the ADA language developed by Praxis, Inc.). The Ravenscar is a profile for developing processes, so CSP processes including their message channels can be easily deployed. On the other hand, SPARK is a language where one can insert data predicates (originally specified in Object-Z) using language annotations. The SPARK language has a tool, the Examiner, that can model check code based on these annotations. In summary, the proposed method allows model checking of CSP processes but does not allow any checking in the code level. On the contrary, Object-Z specifications must first be converted into a SPARK language code, together with proper annotations, and then model checking can be realised in code. The development of a real-time reactive control architecture of an ROV named VSOR (Veiculo Submarino Operado Remotamente) is used as an example of the use of the proposed method. The whole control architecture is coded using the ADA Language with the RavenSPARK profile and deployed into a PC104 cpu system running the Vxworks real-time operating system of Windriver, Inc.

ASSUNTO(S)

underwater vehicles software architecture (specification) arquitetura de software (especificação) submersíveis não tripulados

ACESSO AO ARTIGO

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