Model Checking Large Software Specifications

In this paper we present our experiences in using symbolic model checking to analyze a specification of a software system for aircraft collision avoidance. Symbolic model checking has been highly successful when applied to hardware systems. We are interested in whether model checking can be effectively applied to large software specifications. To investigate this, we translated a portion of the state-based system requirements specification of Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System II (TCAS II) into input to a model checker (SMV). We successfully used the model checker to analyze a number of properties of the system. We report on our experiences, describing our approach to translating the specification to the SMV language, explaining our methods for achieving acceptable performance, and giving a summary of the properties analyzed. Based on our experiences, we discuss the possibility of using model checking to aid specification development by iteratively applying the technique earl...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 1996
• Where: SIGSOFT
• Authors: Richard J. Anderson, Paul Beame, Steve Burns, William Chan, Francesmary Modugno, David Notkin, Jon Damon Reese
• Keywords: Collision Avoidance, Model Checking, SIGSOFT 1996, Software Engineering, Symbolic Model Checking