Formal Methods and Tools for Safety of Critical Systems

Abstract

Advances in the quality of Safety-Critical Software Systems are very much essential in addressing the correctness, safety and security attributes of the system. The development processes of such critical systems are imperative at corresponding stages in accomplishing its key attributes. The use of formal methods and tools coupled with formal verification techniques presumes explicit definition of system and its properties which meets the specifications. A meticulous mathematical notation used to represent the critical systems at early stages of their development process is the substratum of Formal Methods. Model checking, a formal verification technique, encompasses specification and modelling languages that improve the overall software architecture. This paper describes various tools at different phases of development process of Safety-Critical Systems, aiding formal methods and verification techniques in software practices. Also we present a unified-framework architecture which integrates various such tools used in the development of Safety-Critical Systems and their underlying software.