ON THE EVOLUTION OF RELIABILITY METHODS FOR CRITICAL SOFTWARE

Issue title: Applications of formal methods

Article type: Research Article

Authors: del Mar Gallardo, María | Martínez, Jesús | Merino, Pedro | Pimentel, Ernesto

Affiliations: Department of Computer Science, University of Malaga, Spain

Abstract: The dream of software developers is a debugging tool that automatically finds all the potential errors in a quite readable and easy-to-locate format. In particular, this is sought desired by developers of concurrent programs for critical systems, such as control or communication systems. The unpredictable nature of this software and its large amount of potential behaviors makes it very prone to errors. Fortunately, the development of verification techniques during the last 20 years currently has motivated promising projects to obtain powerful tools. This paper summarizes the view of the past evolution and the current trend in this field.

Keywords: reliability, formal methods, model checking, critical systems

Journal: Journal of Integrated Design & Process Science, vol. 10, no. 4, pp. 55-67, 2006