Understanding multidimensional verification: Where functional meets non-functional

The number of artificial intelligence methods applied to actual industrial process control and/or to plant-wide control has been rapidly increasing. For example, the application of fuzzy controllers in continuous process control and manufacturing, expert systems for automatic and/or automated decision making in production control and in supporting the managerial activities, have proven their effectiveness.

Timing Problems and Their Handling at System Integration

Timing constraints and timing correctness are not only software implementation problems but are also, to a large extent, specification and design problems. The most widely studied items-scheduling algorithms and performance-are typical implementation problems. Interest in time-constraint elicitation from the application domain is increasing. Comparatively little has been done in the area of consistency and integrity checking of the elicited time constraints. The paper suggests a way to enhance the OMT methodology with a set of methods (the Q-model) for handling the consistency, non-contradiction and integrity analysis of time constraints imposed on the system. The Q-model is well supported by related studies on the required timing properties, time modelling requirements in a real-time systems, and consistency of its own axiomatic basis. The message of the paper is that real-time systems cannot be satisfactorily handled by extending existing data processing methods. More radical changes are needed based on new paradigms and research on time modelling.

Enhancing object modelling technique with timing analysis capabilities

It is suggested that timing restrictions are the fundamental part of the specification of a time-critical system (limiting the possible design solution space), because most of the timing restrictions have been objectively determined by the object to be controlled and thus cannot be changed arbitrarily. Timing correctness in real-time systems means that process activations, data production and consumption take place in time). So as to guarantee this, methods are needed to formally specify various timing properties and prove correctness of the specification. Equally important, however, are methods and tools for informal study of timing properties. Special emphasis is placed on the possibilities provided by the ANIMATOR., which is one of the two main tools in the CONRAD software engineering environment. >

Animation in CONRAD: informal analysis of timing properties

The Impact of Software Timing Correctness on Systems Safety

A mathematical model (the Q-model) which enables analytical study of a wide range of timing properties is suggested and some results obtained are listed. Main attention of the paper, however, is devoted to justifying the necessity of a new model against the wonderful existing formalisms. Three important features of real-time software, not really supported by the existing formalisms, are pointed out. A classification of basic requirements for timing correctness is given. It is suggested that , many essential timing properties -- analyzable in the Q-model -- can not be thoroughly studied in widely used formalisms since they do not capture the necessary multitude of time concepts.

L. Motus

Papers

Analytical Study of Quantitative Timing Properties of Software