Composition and refinement of discrete real-time systems

: This research is directed towards the implementation of a comprehensive toolkit for the development and verification of high assurance reactive systems, especially concurrent, real time, and hybrid systems. For this, we have designed and implemented the STeP (Stanford Temporal Prover) verification system. STeP is a tool for the computer aided formal verification of reactive systems, including real time and hybrid systems based on their temporal specification. STeP integrates model checking and deductive methods to allow the verification of a broad class of systems, including parameterized (N component) circuit designs, parameterized (N process) programs. and programs with infinite data domains.

The specification of reactive and real-time systems must be supported by formal, mathematically-founded methods in order to be satisfactory and reliable. Temporal logics have been used to this end for several years. Temporal logics allow the specification of system behavior in terms of logical formulas, including temporal constraints, events, and the relationships between the two. In the last ten years, temporal logics have reached a high degree of expressiveness. Most of the temporal logics proposed in the last few years can be used for specifying reactive systems, although not all are suitable for specifying real-time systems. In this paper we present a series of criteria for assessing the capabilities of temporal logics for the specification, validation, and verification of real-time systems. Among the criteria are the logic's expressiveness, the logic's order, presence of a metric for time, the type of temporal operators, the fundamental time entity, and the structure of time. We examine a selection of temporal logics proposed in the literature. To make the comparison clearer, a set of typical specifications is identified and used with most of the temporal logics considered, thus presenting the reader with a number of real examples.

Systematic design methods are widely diffused in academia, representing a standard in many engineering courses. Nevertheless, some flaws related to the conceptual design phase have been ascribed to these methods, especially concerning a non-comprehensive support to innovation. However, literature acknowledges several creativity-enhancing tools that can be conveniently combined with systematic design methods. In particular, many scholars refer to TRIZ, i.e. the well-known Russian problem-solving theory. Moreover, recent literature contributions propose some alternatives to the classical Functional Decomposition and Morphology (FDM), claiming to overcome some of the related flaws. One of them is the Problem Solution Network (PSN) approach, i.e. a systematic conceptual design method strongly based on a problem-solution co-evolutionary logic. In this context, our work aims at combining the potentialities of TRIZ with the benefits claimed for the PSN, by proposing a comprehensive integration procedure. Accordingly, this paper reports a detailed description of the proposal, where TRIZ tools are exploited to support problem solving within the PSN approach. Furthermore, an application is also reported where an industrial case study is presented to argue about possible potentialities and lacks of the proposed approach.

Background: Piezoceramic materials have unique property which enables direct and bilateral conversion between mechanical and electrical energy. This ability facilitates significant miniaturisation of technology and opens many opportunities in design of new actuators and energy harvesters. Mathematical modelling of piezoelectric modules is notoriously hard due to complex constitutive equations defining mechanical and electrical energy conversion. Methods: The article presents research on a new synthesis method based on the Cauer’s method for electrical and mechanical system design. Mechanical damping is introduced with the use of Rayleigh’s approximation. A discrete electromechanical model is formed based on the Mason’s piezoelectric model. As an additional element of the research, a non-standard model analysis method using edge graphs and structural numbers is employed to investigate potential reductions in computational requirements for model analysis. Results: The electromechanical model analysis has shown an error of 5% in relation to the resonance target. The calculated peak in magnitude of displacement at the resonant frequency was well above the capability of a 3.5mm thick piezoelectric plate. The proposed non-standard method of analysis gave identical results in terms of obtained resonance frequencies. The calculated magnitude of vibrations was varying by 50 – 58%. Conclusions: The synthesis method presented in this paper allows an approximation of piezoelectric parameters of a real system based on the created mathematical model. Currently this method is subject to a considerable error in the determined vibration amplitudes of the system, but it allows a coarse approximation of the parameters while having a very limited number of input data. The additional method of analysis based on structural numbers offers a promising alternative to matrix calculations but requires a more thorough investigation of the computational power required to determine whether it can compete with existing algorithms.

Reactive systems are computing systems which are interactive, such as real-time systems, operating systems, concurrent systems and control systems. These are among the most difficult computing systems to program. Temporal logic is a formal tool/language which yields excellent results in specifying reactive systems, and this volume (the first of two), offers an introduction to temporal logic and to the computational model for reactive programs which has been developed by the authors.

In this paper, we propose an efficient design method for a thermal camera with continuous zoom based on the research and manufacturing experience of the thermal camera. In addition, it is divided into system design method, optical design method, mechanical design method, and electronic design method. First, we propose an effective NUC compensation method and a lens-specific sensitivity design method in terms of system. Second, we propose a zoom trajectory design method considering the temperature effect on the optical aspect. Third, it suggests the minimization of optical axis shaking between magnification conversion in terms of mechanism. Finally, we propose a lens-specific temperature compensation method and a speed conversion algorithm according to the zoom interval as an electronic aspect.

This book presents a synthesis of recent works concerning reactive system design. The term `reactive system' has been introduced in order to avoid ambiguities often involved with the term `real-time system' which, while being best-known and suggestive, has been assigned so many different meanings that it is almost inevitably misunderstood. Industrial Process control system, transportation control and supervision systems, signal processing systems, etc. are examples of the systems we have in mind. Four programming languages are presented, which share the same underlying synchronous model: based on Robin Milner's pioneering works about synchronous process algebras, this model consists in considering that a program instantaneously reacts to events, or that the machine execution time is negligible with respect to the response delays of its environment. Using this abstract point of view, the time behavior of a system can be formalized in a very simple and elegant way. The languages presented are ESTEREL, a textual imperative language; ARGOS, a graphical language inspired by STATECHARTS; and LUSTRE and SIGNAL, two declarative languages. After a tutorial description of the languages, illustrated by various examples, a set of related tools is presented: compilers to sequential and distributed code, silicon compilers, verification tools.

A breaking index appeared in the Boussinesq-type numerical model (Lynett, 2006) is replaced and tested. The new breaking index, which includes the water depth effect and is not sensitive to the spatial grid length, was first proposed by the Smith and Kraus (1991) and further optimized by many experimental data in this study. The numerical tests show that the modified Lynett's model with this new breaking index is more stable and efficient in the nearshore breaking point computations. Comparison with Dingemans (1994) experiment shows the validity of the modified Lynett's model in the nearshore wave breaking simulation.

Real-time systems are those systems in which the correctness of the system depends not only on the logical results of computation but also on the time at which the results are produced [Stankovic 1988]. They span a broad spectrum of complexity from very simple microcontrollers in embedded systems (a microprocessor controlling an automobile engine) to highly sophisticated, complex, and distributed systems (air traffic control for the continental United States). Other real-time systems include command and control systems, process control systems, and multimedia and high-speed communication systems. Some real-time systems are beginning to add expert systems and other AI technology, creating additional requirements and complexities. At least three major trends in the real-time and embedded systems field have had a major impact on its technology: the increased growth and sophistication of embedded systems, the development of more scientific and technological results for hard real-time systems, and the advent of distributed multimedia. Most embedded systems consist of a small microcontroller and limited software situated within some product such as a microwave oven or automobile. However, with the increasing sophistication of such systems, powerful microcontrollers and digital signal processing (DSP) chips are commonly used, as are off-the-shelf real-time operating systems and design and debugging tools. Many people working with embedded systems deal on a daily basis with sensors and data acquisition technology and systems; others construct architectures based on single-board computers (many are still 68000-based, but RISC processors are being used more and more) and buses such as the VME bus. Many people are involved with the programming and debugging of embedded systems, largely using the C programming language and cross development and debugging platforms. Embedded systems may or may not have real-time constraints. Hard real-time systems are those in which missing an important deadline can cause severe consequences, even death. In this area, many fundamental results have been developed. For example, in real-time scheduling, rate monotonic analysis has enabled careful evaluation of many practical systems; the concept and analysis of competitive algorithms has provided important scheduling bounds and limits; and on-line planning has added flexible and dynamic capabilities to real-time systems. Operating systems research has produced predictable primitives, time-constrained synchronization techniques, and reservation and admission-control paradigms. Many other results exist in real-time architecture, fault tolerance, communication protocols, specification and design tools, formal verification, databases and object-oriented systems. Emphasis on all these areas is expected to increase in the foreseeable future. Many hard real-time systems are embedded systems. Distributed multimedia have produced a new set of soft real-time requirements. Real-time principles lie at the heart of distributed multimedia, but without the concomitant high reliability

Increasing complexity of real-time systems, and demands for enabling their configurability and tailorability are strong motivations for applying new software engineering principles, such as aspect-oriented and component-based development. In this paper we introduce a novel concept of aspectual component-based real-time system development. The concept is based on a design method that assumes decomposition of real-time systems into components and aspects, and provides a real-time component model that supports the notion of time and temporal constraints, space and resource management constraints, and composability. We anticipate that the successful applications of the proposed concept should have a positive impact on real-time system development in enabling efficient configuration of real-time systems, improved reusability and flexibility of real-time software, and modularization of crosscutting concerns. We provide arguments for this assumption by presenting an application of the proposed concept on the design and development of a configurable embedded real-time database, called COMET. Furthermore, using the COMET system as an example, we introduce a novel way of handling concurrency in a real-time database system, where concurrency is modeled as an aspect crosscutting the system.

Real-time systems modeling and verification is a complex task. In many cases, formal methods have been employed to deal with the complexity of these systems, but checking those models is usually unfeasible. Modeling and simulation methods introduce a means of validating these model’s specifications. In particular, Discrete Event System Specification (DEVS) models can be used for this purpose. Here, we introduce a new extension to the DEVS formalism, called the Rational Time-Advance DEVS (RTA-DEVS), which permits modeling the behavior of real-time systems that can be modeled by the classical DEVS; however, RTA-DEVS models can be formally checked with standard model-checking algorithms and tools. In order to do so, we introduce a procedure to create timed automata (TA) models that are behaviorally equivalent to the original RTA-DEVS models. This enables the use of the available TA tools and theories for formal model checking. Further, we introduce a methodology to transform classic DEVS models to RTA-DEVS models, thus enabling formal verification of classic DEVS with an acceptable accuracy.

Reactive Multi-Agent system (RMAS) has emerged as an attractive technology for the design and implementation of distributed and cooperative systems. The RMAS main challenge is how to clearly identify its local and global behavior. Several approaches have been introduced to deal with behavioral specification of RMAS. However, there is a lack in the specification and verification process that facilitates understanding the system from goals identification that the system expects to achieve to formal verification of system properties. In this paper, we are interested to the specification problem of Reactive Multi-Agent System (RMAS) for both individual and collective behavior by taking into account two modes of specification: normal mode and fault-tolerance mode. To do so, we propose a method called BECAMEDA (Behavioral SpEcification and VerifiCAtion of RMAS based on E-MDRA) for the specification and verification of reactive Multi-agent system based on the MDRA (Multi-Decisional Reactive Agent) models. The MDRA specifies the reactive agent behavior by highlighting the decisional aspect of the agent. The BECAMEDA method will be described throughout an example of Car Crisis Management.

Unified Modeling Language is being used for modeling of business processes, real-time systems, embedded systems and hybrid systems. In software engineering, there are different techniques for verification of such systems. Model checking is one of the techniques for the automatic verification of software models. Earlier, these model were verified by sequential model checking tools. For very large complex systems, parallel verification can save verification time. DiVinE is a model checking tool for both CPUs and GPUs clusters to perform parallel linear time logic (LTL) verification of systems. In this paper, we propose a parallel verification methodology for UML models using DiVinE tool. We explain this methodology by the case study example of fuel filling machine.

Discrete systems such as sets, monoids, groups are familiar categories. The internal structure of the latter two is defined by an algebraic operator. In this paper we concentrate on discrete systems that are characterized by unary operators; these include choice operators σ, encountered in economics and social theory, and closure operators φ, encountered in discrete geometry and data mining. Because, for many arbitrary operators α, it is easy to induce a closure structure on the base set, closure operators play a central role in discrete systems.

Worst Case Execution Time (WCET) analysis of large and complex hybrid systems can be time consuming. Contract based design allows for compositional reasoning of complex systems. Contracts justify the behavior of a system by way of assumptions (which are to be satisfied by the system environment) and guarantees, which are to be met by the system. Contracts also play a major role in compositional reasoning, refinement and re-usability of the system components. In this paper, we present a formal framework to enforce real-time contracts using Hoare triples, for synchronous system design and verification. In that regard, we propose real-time Hoare rules which are based on the WCET of the system and its components. We verify the real-time behavior of the system by applying these rules. These rules not only justify the system behavior and the behavior of its components but their timing as well. We also show that these Hoare rules are sound. Then we show that the synchronous composition of component level Hoare rules based contracts justify a system level contract. This real-time contract composition and reasoning technique which is based on real-time Hoare logic rules is the first ever attempt in synchronous system design and verification.