Large Integrating formal verification methods of quantitative real-time properties into a development environment for robot controllers

Abstract

In this paper we describe our experience with a development environment for robot controllers, which provides the user with formal verification functionalities. We study how to augment these functionalities by also allowing formal verification of quantitative real-time properties. Our approach is based on the timed extension of a synchronous language, named Timed-Argos, and on a symbolic model-checking tool named Kronos for the real-time temporal logic TCTL. We illustrate this approach by a real example taken from the area of autonomous vehicles, which poses some challenges on the applicability of the theory and finally, we discuss some possible solutions. This {\em large-scale} real application is also an opportunity to identify new research directions in the area of formal verification.