Towards Compositional Verification for Modular Robotic Systems

TL;DR

This paper proposes a compositional verification approach for modular robotic systems using First-Order Logic contracts to integrate different verification techniques and ensure system-wide consistency.

Contribution

It introduces a novel method to combine diverse verification techniques through FOL contracts, facilitating modular verification of robotic software.

Findings

Contracts guide verification of individual components

Example with autonomous inspection robot demonstrates approach

Framework supports confidence assessment in verification results

Abstract

Software engineering of modular robotic systems is a challenging task, however, verifying that the developed components all behave as they should individually and as a whole presents its own unique set of challenges. In particular, distinct components in a modular robotic system often require different verification techniques to ensure that they behave as expected. Ensuring whole system consistency when individual components are verified using a variety of techniques and formalisms is difficult. This paper discusses how to use compositional verification to integrate the various verification techniques that are applied to modular robotic software, using a First-Order Logic (FOL) contract that captures each component's assumptions and guarantees. These contracts can then be used to guide the verification of the individual components, be it by testing or the use of a formal method. We provide an illustrative example of an autonomous robot used in remote inspection. We also discuss a way of defining confidence for the verification associated with each component.