Formal Verification of Safety-Critical Aerospace Systems

Saswata Paul, Elkin Cruz, Airin Dutta, Ankita Bhaumik, Erik Blasch, Gul Agha, Stacy Patterson, Fotis Kopsaftopoulos, Carlos A. Varela

2023IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine44 citationsDOI

Abstract

Developments in autonomous aircraft, such as electrical vertical take-off and landing vehicles and multicopter drones, raise safety-critical concerns in populated areas. This article presents the Analysis of Safety-Critical Systems Using Formal Methods-Based Runtime Evaluation (ASSURE) framework, which is a collection of techniques for aiding in the formal verification of safety-critical aerospace systems. ASSURE supports the rigorous verification of deterministic and nondeterministic properties of both distributed and centralized aerospace applications by using formal theorem proving tools. We present verifiable algorithms and software, formal reasoning models, formal proof libraries, and a data-driven runtime verification approach for aerospace systems toward a provably safe Internet of Planes infrastructure.

Topics & Concepts

AerospaceFormal verificationFormal methodsComputer scienceRuntime verificationNondeterministic algorithmModel checkingLife-critical systemFormal specificationAutomated theorem provingSoftwareSoftware verificationVerifiable secret sharingSoftware engineeringSystems engineeringSoftware systemProgramming languageEngineeringTheoretical computer scienceAerospace engineeringSoftware constructionSet (abstract data type)Formal Methods in VerificationDistributed systems and fault toleranceSoftware Testing and Debugging Techniques