Mining Parametric Temporal Logic Properties in Model Based Design for Cyber-Physical Systems

TL;DR

This paper introduces a framework for automatically exploring parameter ranges in temporal logic specifications of cyber-physical systems, aiding early verification and understanding of system behaviors.

Contribution

It presents a novel method to infer parameter ranges in parametric temporal logic specifications using stochastic optimization, with algorithms for exploration and visualization.

Findings

Successfully applied to an industrial engine model

Effectively identifies parameter ranges where properties do not hold

Provides a practical tool for early system verification

Abstract

One of the advantages of adopting a Model Based Development (MBD) process is that it enables testing and verification at early stages of development. However, it is often desirable to not only verify/falsify certain formal system specifications, but also to automatically explore the properties that the system satisfies. In this work, we present a framework that enables property exploration for Cyber-Physical Systems. Namely, given a parametric specification with multiple parameters, our solution can automatically infer the ranges of parameters for which the property does not hold on the system. In this paper, we consider parametric specifications in Metric or Signal Temporal Logic (MTL or STL). Using robust semantics for MTL, the parameter mining problem can be converted into a Pareto optimization problem for which we can provide an approximate solution by utilizing stochastic optimization methods. We include algorithms for the exploration and visualization of multi-parametric specifications. The framework is demonstrated on an industrial size, high-fidelity engine model as well as examples from related literature.