Time properties verification framework for UML-MARTE safety critical real-time systems

Abstract

Time properties are key requirements for the reliability of Safety Critical Real-Time Systems (RTS). UML and MARTE are standardized modelling languages widely accepted by industrial designers for the design of RTS using Model-Driven Engineering (MDE). However, formal verification at early phases of the system lifecycle for UML-MARTE models remains mainly an open issue. In this paper, we present a time properties verification framework for UML-MARTE safety critical RTS. This framework relies on a property-driven transformation from UML architecture and behaviour models to executable and verifiable models expressed with Time Petri Nets (TPN). Meanwhile, it translates the time properties into a set of property patterns, corresponding to TPN observers. The observer-based model checking approach is then performed on the produced TPN. This verification framework can assess time properties like upper bound for loops and buffers, Best/Worst-Case Response Time, Best/Worst-Case Execution Time, Best/Worst-Case Traversal Time, schedulability, and synchronization-related properties (synchronization, coincidence, exclusion, precedence, sub-occurrence, causality). In addition, it can verify some behavioural properties like absence of deadlock or dead branches. This framework is illustrated with a representative case study. This paper also provides experimental results and evaluates the method's performance. © 2012 Springer-Verlag.