Model Checking Applied to Embedded Software of University Satellite

Abstract

This work proposes the use of model checking for verifying the specification of critical embedded software of university satellites. The motivation for this work comes from two features commonly found in university satellite projects. The first one is the limited budget of the project. It usually results in a design of the on-board computer that relies on the software for detecting and treating hardware faults, instead of using radiation hard components. The second one is the lack of experience of the development team, which may compromise the quality of specification documents, jeopardizing the mission. In order to identify the advantages and limitations of model checking for university satellites, we used the software of the communication module of ITASAT satellite as a case study. The verification is performed with UPPAAL model checker. In order to avoid the state space explosion problem, similar non-deterministic events are simplified. The results show that the model checking process significantly contributed to identify and remove completeness problems in the software requirement specification documents.