Verification of Embedded Real-time Systems

Real-time systems are systems where the correctness does not only depend on their correct functioning but also on meeting realtime constraints. Such systems are often deployed in safety-critical applications, for example in airplanes, trains, or automotive systems. There, a failure may result in enormous costs or even in human injuries or loss of lifes. As a consequence, systematic verification and validation of real-time systems is a crucial issue.

The main application area for real-time systems are embedded applications, where the system controls technical processes that also evolve in real-time. Such systems are usually composed of deeply integrated hardware and software components, and they are developed under severe resource limitations and high quality requirements. In connection with the steadily increasing demands on multi-functioning and flexibility, analog control components are more and more replaced by complex digital HW/SW systems.

A major challenge is to develop automated quality assurance techniques that can be used for the verification and validation of complex embedded real-time systems that consist of both hardware and software. In this chapter, we give an overview over our research contributions to this topic. In particular, we present our framework for the verification of safety and timing properties of digital embedded real-time systems, which are modeled in SystemC, using timed automata and the U

PPAAL

model checker.