The use of formal methods for software development is escalating over the period of time. The inp... more The use of formal methods for software development is escalating over the period of time. The input to this formal specification phase is often the documents obtained during the requirements analysis activity which are either textual or semi-formal. Now there is a traceability gap between analysis and specification phases as verification of the semi-formal analysis model is difficult because of poor understandability of lower level of formalism of verification tools and validation of the formal specification is difficult for customers due to their inability to understand formal models. Our objective is to bridge this gap by a gradual introduction of formalism into the requirement model in order to facilitate its validation.We analyse our requirements with KAOS (Knowledge Acquisition in autOmated Specification) [1] which is a goal-oriented methodology for requirements modeling, then we translate the KAOS goal model, following our derived precise semantics [3], into an Event-B [2] formal specification, and finally we rigourously animate the obtained specification in order to validate its conformance to original requirements with the approach defined in [4].
This paper presents our experience of modeling land transportation domain in the formal framework... more This paper presents our experience of modeling land transportation domain in the formal framework of Event-B. Well-specified requirements are crucial for good software design; they depend on the understanding of the domain. Thus, domain engineering becomes an essential activity. The possibility to have a formal model of a domain, consistent with the use of formal methods for developing critical software working within it, is an important issue. Safety-critical domains, like transportation, exhibit interesting features, such as high levels of nondeterminism, complex interactions, stringent safety properties, and multifaceted timing attributes. The formal representation of these features is a challenging task. We explore the possibility of utilizing Event-B as a domain engineering tool. We discuss the problems we faced during this exercise and how we tackled them. Special attention is devoted to the issue of the validation of the model, in particular with a technique based on the animation of specifications. Event-B is mature enough to be an effective tool to model domains except in some areas, temporal properties mainly, where more work is still needed.
The use of formal methods for software development is escalating over the period of time. The inp... more The use of formal methods for software development is escalating over the period of time. The input to this formal specification phase is often the documents obtained during the requirements analysis activity which are either textual or semi-formal. Now there is a traceability gap between analysis and specification phases as verification of the semi-formal analysis model is difficult because of poor understandability of lower level of formalism of verification tools and validation of the formal specification is difficult for customers due to their inability to understand formal models. Our objective is to bridge this gap by a gradual introduction of formalism into the requirement model in order to facilitate its validation.We analyse our requirements with KAOS (Knowledge Acquisition in autOmated Specification) [1] which is a goal-oriented methodology for requirements modeling, then we translate the KAOS goal model, following our derived precise semantics [3], into an Event-B [2] formal specification, and finally we rigourously animate the obtained specification in order to validate its conformance to original requirements with the approach defined in [4].
This paper presents our experience of modeling land transportation domain in the formal framework... more This paper presents our experience of modeling land transportation domain in the formal framework of Event-B. Well-specified requirements are crucial for good software design; they depend on the understanding of the domain. Thus, domain engineering becomes an essential activity. The possibility to have a formal model of a domain, consistent with the use of formal methods for developing critical software working within it, is an important issue. Safety-critical domains, like transportation, exhibit interesting features, such as high levels of nondeterminism, complex interactions, stringent safety properties, and multifaceted timing attributes. The formal representation of these features is a challenging task. We explore the possibility of utilizing Event-B as a domain engineering tool. We discuss the problems we faced during this exercise and how we tackled them. Special attention is devoted to the issue of the validation of the model, in particular with a technique based on the animation of specifications. Event-B is mature enough to be an effective tool to model domains except in some areas, temporal properties mainly, where more work is still needed.
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