A TASM-based requirements validation approach for safety-critical embedded systems

Abstract

Requirements validation is an essential activity to carry out in the system development life cycle, and it confirms the completeness and consistency of requirements through various levels. Model-based formal methods can provide a cost-effective solution to requirements validation in a wide range of domains such as safety-critical applications. In this paper, we extend a formal language Timed Abstract State Machine (TASM) with two newly defined constructs Event and Observer, and propose a novel requirements validation approach based on the extended TASM. Specifically, our approach can: 1) model both functional and non-functional (e.g. timing and resource consumption) requirements of the system at different levels and, 2) perform requirements validation by utilizing our developed toolset and a model checker. Finally, we demonstrate the applicability of our approach in real world usage through an industrial case study of a Brake-by-Wire system. © 2014 Springer International Publishing.