Towards the Coordination and Verification of Heterogeneous Systems with Data and Time

TL;DR

This paper presents a non-intrusive formal verification framework for heterogeneous, real-time software systems, integrating multiple languages and coordination mechanisms using rewriting logic to ensure correctness.

Contribution

It introduces a novel coordination framework with a domain-specific language and language adapters, enabling formal analysis of complex heterogeneous systems.

Findings

Successfully verified correctness properties of a road-rail crossing system

Demonstrated the framework's ability to handle heterogeneous data and time constraints

Implemented the approach using Maude rewriting logic

Abstract

Modern software systems are often realized by coordinating multiple heterogeneous parts, each responsible for specific tasks. These parts must work together seamlessly to satisfy the overall system requirements. To verify such complex systems, we have developed a non-intrusive coordination framework capable of performing formal analysis of heterogeneous parts that exchange data and include real-time capabilities. The framework utilizes a linguistic extension, which is implemented as a central broker and a domain-specific language for the integration of heterogeneous languages and coordination of parts. Moreover, abstract rule templates are reified as language adapters for non-intrusive communications with the broker. The framework is implemented using rewriting logic (Maude), and its applicability is demonstrated by verifying certain correctness properties of a heterogeneous road-rail crossing system.