Towards A Formal Software Development in a Concurrent Engineering Environment: A Space System Case

Abstract

This work proposes the adoption of a formal approach for the software models construction in a concurrent system engineering environment, before an architectural design and code is created. The approach is intended to cause the developers, from the outset, to consider all elements of the software product life cycle, including not only functional requirements but also significant safety requirements. We explore whether we can use existing Event-B composition and refinement techniques and the tooling environment Rodin Platform in a concurrent engineering development. Such approach was applied to a case study of a flight software system and, according to the results to date, the approach has shown to be promising for safety–critical systems development. The main contribution of this work is to offer an efficient evaluation of the software system models that are concurrently designed with other system’s components in the engineering space, uncovering design problems that can be fixed earlier and improving the system’s trustworthiness. Final observations include some lessons learnt, strengths, and limitations of such approach.