Reverse Engineering of Middleware for Verification of Robot Control Architectures

TL;DR

This paper presents a method for automating the verification of distributed robot control software by reverse engineering middleware as finite-state automata and verifying the combined model, addressing complexity and model availability issues.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach combining automata-based middleware identification with verification, enabling analysis of complex distributed control systems.

Findings

Feasibility demonstrated for automata-based middleware modeling

Verification of combined models improves correctness assurance

Applicable to typical distributed control software scenarios

Abstract

We consider the problem of automating the verification of distributed control software relying on publish-subscribe middleware. In this scenario, the main challenge is that software correctness depends intrinsically on correct usage of middleware components, but structured models of such components might not be available for analysis, e.g., because they are too large and complex to be described precisely in a cost-effective way. To overcome this problem, we propose to identify abstract models of middleware as finite-state automata, and then to perform verification on the combined middleware and control software models. Both steps are carried out in a computer-assisted way using state-of-the-art techniques in automata-based identification and verification. Our main contribution is to show that the combination of identification and verification is feasible and useful when considering typical issues that arise in the implementation of distributed control software.