Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Verifying distributed real-time properties of embedded systems via graph transformations and model checking

  • Published:
Real-Time Systems Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Component middleware provides dependable and efficient platforms that support key functional, and quality of service (QoS) needs of distributed real-time embedded (DRE) systems. Component middleware, however, also introduces challenges for DRE system developers, such as evaluating the predictability of DRE system behavior, and choosing the right design alternatives before committing to a specific platform or platform configuration. Model-based technologies help address these issues by enabling design-time analysis, and providing the means to automate the development, deployment, configuration, and integration of component-based DRE systems. To this end, this paper applies model checking techniques to DRE design models using model transformations to verify key QoS properties of component-based DRE systems developed using Real-time CORBA. We introduce a formal semantic domain for a general class of DRE systems that enables the verification of distributed non-preemptive real-time scheduling. Our results show that model-based techniques enable design-time analysis of timed properties and can be applied to effectively predict, simulate, and verify the event-driven behavior of component-based DRE systems.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Abdeddaïm Y, Maler O (2002) Preemptive job-shop scheduling using stopwatch automata. In TACAS ’02: Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Tools and Algorithms for the Construction and Analysis of Systems. Springer-Verlag, London, UK, pp 113–126

    Google Scholar 

  • Agrawal A, Karsai G, Ledeczi A (2003) An End-to-End Domain-Driven Development Framework. In Proceedings of the 18th Annual ACM SIGPLAN Conference on Object-Oriented Programming, Systems, Languages, and Applications (OOPSLA)

  • Alur R, Courcoubetis C, Dill DL (1993) Model-checking in dense real-timeInformation and Computation 104(1):2–34

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  • Alur R, Dill DL (1994) A theory of timed automataTheoretical Computer Science 126(2):183–235

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  • Arulanthu AB, O’Ryan C, Schmidt DC, Kircher M, Parsons J (2000) The Design and Performance of a Scalable ORB architecture for CORBA asynchronous messaging. In Proceedings of the Middleware Conference. ACM/IFIP

  • Balarin F, Watanabe Y, Hsieh H, Lavagno L, Passerone C, Sangiovanni-Vincentelli A (2003) Metropolis: An integrated electronic system design environmentComputer 36(4):45–52

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Blazewicz J, Lenstra J, Kan AR (1983) Scheduling subject to resource constraints: Classification and complexity Discrete Applied Mathematics, pp 11–24

  • Bozga M, Graf S, Ober I, Ober I, Sifakis J (2004) The IF toolset Formal Methods for the Design of Real-Time Systems, LNCS 3185, pp 237–267

  • Braberman VA, Felder M (1999) Verification of Real-Time Designs: Combining Scheduling Theory with Automatic Formal Verification. In Software Engineering-ESEC/FSE 99, pp 494–510

  • Bradley S, Henderson W, Kendall D (1999) Using Timed Automata for Response Time Analysis of Distributed Real-Time Systems. In 24th IFAC/IFIP Workshop on Real-Time Programming WRTP 99, pp 143–148

  • Buschmann F, Meunier R, Rohnert H, Sommerlad P, Stal M (1996) Pattern-oriented software architecture—A system of patterns. Wiley & Sons, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Buttazzo GC (2005) Rate monotonic vs. EDF: Judgment day. Real-Time Systems 29:5–26

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  • Cornea R, Dutt N, Gupta R, Krueger I, Nicolau A, Schmidt D, Shukla S (2003) FORGE: A Framework for Optimization of Distributed Embedded Systems Software. In Proceedings of the International Parallel and Distributed Processing Symposium

  • Daws C, Olivero A, Tripakis S, Yovine S (1996) The tool KRONOS. In Proceedings of the DIMACS/SYCON Workshop on Hybrid Systems III: Verification and Control. Springer-Verlag, New York, Inc., pp 208–219

    Google Scholar 

  • de Niz D, Rajkumar R (2003) Time weaver: A Software-Through-Models Framework for Real-Time Systems. In Proceedings of LCTES

  • Deshpande M, Schmidt DC, O’Ryan C, Brunsch D (2002) Design and Performance of Asynchronous Method Handling for CORBA. In Proceedings of Distributed Objects and Applications (DOA)

  • Doerr BS, Sharp DC (1999) Freeing Product Line Architectures from Execution Dependencies. In Proceedings of the 11th Annual Software Technology Conference

  • Edmund J, Clarke M, Grumberg O, Peled DA (1999) Model checking. MIT Press

  • Ericsson C, Wall A, Yi W (1999) Timed automata as task models for event-driven systems. In Proceedings of RTSCA ’99

  • Gerdsmeier T, Cardell-Oliver R (2001) Analysis of scheduling behaviour using generic timed automata 42

  • Gill CD, Gossett JM, Corman D, Loyall JP, Schantz RE, Atighetchi M, Schmidt DC (2005) Integrated adaptive QoS management in middleware: An empirical case studyJournal of Real-Time Systems 24

  • Gokhale A, Balasubramanian K, Balasubramanian J, Krishna AS, Edwards GT, Deng G, Turkay E, Parsons J, Schmidt DC (2005) Model driven middleware: A new paradigm for deploying and provisioning distributed real-time and embedded applications The Journal of Science of Computer Programming: Special Issue on Model Driven Architecture, (to appear)

  • Gu Z, Shin K (2005) Model-checking of component-based real-time embedded software based on corba event service. In IEEE International Symposium on Object-Oriented Real-Time Distributed Computing

  • Gu Z, Wang S, Kodase S, Shin KG (2003) An End-to-End Tool Chain for Multi-View Modeling and Analysis of Avionics Mission Computing Software. In Proceedings of Real-Time Systems Symposium

  • Harrison TH, Levine DL, Schmidt DC (1997) The design and performance of a real-time CORBA event service. In Proceedings of the 12th ACM SIGPLAN Conference on Object-Oriented Programming, Systems, Languages, and Applications. ACM Press, pp 184–200

  • Hartmann S, Kolisch R (2000) Experimental evaluation of state-of-the-art heuristics for the resource-constrained project scheduling problem European Journal of Operations Research, 394–407

  • Hatcliff J, Deng X, Dwyer MB, Jung G, Ranganath VP (2003) Cadena: An Integrated Development, Analysis, and Verification Environment for Component-based Systems. In Proceedings of International Conference on Software Engineering

  • Henzinger TA, Jhala R, Majumdar R, Sutre G (2002) Lazy abstraction. In POPL ’02: Proceedings of the 29th ACM SIGPLAN-SIGACT symposium on principles of programming languages. ACM Press, New York, NY, USA, pp 58–70

    Google Scholar 

  • Henzinger TA, Horowitz B, Kirsch CM (2001) Giotto: A time-triggered language for embedded programming. Lecture Notes in Computer Science 2211:166+

  • Holzmann GJ (2004) The SPIN model checker: Primer and reference manual. Addison Wesley, hOL g 03:1 1.Ex

  • Klein MH, Ralya T, Pollak B, Obenza R (1993) A practitioners handbook for real-time analysis: Guide to rate monotonic analysis for real-time systems. Kluwer

  • Kr/vcál P, Yi W (2004) Decidable and Undecidable Problems in Schedulability Analysis Using Timed Automata. In Jensen K, Podelski A (eds), Proc. of TACAS’04, Barcelona, Spain, ser. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Springer-Verlag, vol. 2988, pp 236–250

  • Larsen KG, Pettersson P, Yi W (1997) Uppaal in a nutshellInt. Journal on Software Tools for Technology Transfer 1(1–2):134–152

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ledeczi A, Bakay A, Maroti M, Volgyesi P, Nordstrom G, Sprinkle J (2001) Composing Domain-Specific Design EnvironmentsComputer 44–51

  • Liu CL, Layland JW (1973)Scheduling algorithms for multiprogramming in a hard-real-time environmentJ ACM 20(1):46–61

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  • McManis J, Varaiya P (1994) Suspension automata: A decidable class of hybrid automata. In CAV ’94: Proceedings of the 6th International conference on Computer Aided Verification. Springer-Verlag, London, UK, pp 105–117

    Google Scholar 

  • Madl G, Abdelwahed S (2005) Model-based Analysis of Distributed Real-time Embedded System Composition. In EMSOFT 2005

  • Object Management Group (2002a) CORBA component model. [Online]. Available: http://www.omg.org

  • Object Management Group (2002b) Real-time CORBA SpecificationOMG document formal/02-08-02 ed.

  • Pettersson P, Larsen KG (2000) Uppaal2kBulletin of the European Association for Theoretical Computer Science 70:40–44

    Google Scholar 

  • Roll W (2003)Towards model-based and CCM-based applications for real-time systems. In ISORC ’03: Proceedings of the Sixth IEEE International Symposium on Object-Oriented Real-Time Distributed Computing (ISORC’03). IEEE computer society, pp 75–82

  • Rumbaugh J, Jacobson I, Booch G (1998) The unified modeling language reference manual

  • Schmidt DC, Gokhale A, Harrison TH, Parulkar G (1997) A high-performance endsystem architecture for real-time CORBAIEEE Communications Magazine 14(2)

  • Schmidt DC, Stal M, Rohnert H, Buschmann F (2000) Pattern-oriented software architecture: Patterns for concurrent and networked objects, vol. 2. Wiley & Sons, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Sharp DC, Roll WC (2003) Model-based integration of reusable component-based avionics systems. In Proceedings of the Workshop on Model-Driven Embedded Systems in RTAS 2003

  • Stankovic JA, Zhu R, Poornalingham R, Lu C, Yu Z, Humphrey M, Ellis B (2003) VEST: An aspect-based composition Tool for Real-time Systems. In Proceedings of the IEEE Real-Time Applications Symposium

  • Sztipanovits J, Karsai G (1997) Model-Integrated ComputingIEEE Computer 110–112

  • Tindell K, Clark J (1994) Holistic Schedulability Analysis for Distributed Hard Real-Time Systems Microprocessing and Microprogramming—Euromicro Journal (Special Issue on Parallel Embedded Real-Time Systems) 40:117–134

    Google Scholar 

  • Wang N, Schmidt DC, Parameswaran K, Kircher M (2000) Applying reflective middleware techniques to optimize a QoS-enabled CORBA component model implementation. In 24th Computer Software and Applications Conference. IEEE, Taipei, Taiwan

    Google Scholar 

  • World Wide Web Consortium (2004a) Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0 3rd edn

  • World Wide Web Consortium (2004b) XSL Transformations (XSLT) Version 1.0

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Software Integrated Systems, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, 37205

    Gabor Madl, Sherif Abdelwahed & Douglas C. Schmidt

  2. Center for Embedded Computer Systems, University of California, Irvine, CA, 92697

    Gabor Madl

Authors
  1. Gabor Madl
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Sherif Abdelwahed
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Douglas C. Schmidt
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Additional information

This research was supported by the NSF Grants CCR-0225610 and ACI-0204028

Gabor Madl is a Ph.D. student and a graduate student researcher at the Center for Embedded Computer Systems at the University of California, Irvine. His advisor is Nikil Dutt. His research interests include the formal verification, optimization, component-based composition, and QoS management of distributed real-time embedded systems. He received his M.S. in computer science from Vanderbilt University and in computer engineering from the Budapest University of Technology and Economics.

Dr. Sherif Abdelwahed received his Ph.D. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Toronto, Canada, in 2001. During 2000–2001, he was a research scientist with the system diagnosis group at the Rockwell Scientific Company. Since 2001 he has been with the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Vanderbilt University as a Research Assistant Professor. His research interests include verification and control of distributed real-time systems, and model-based diagnosis of discrete-event and hybrid systems.

Dr. Douglas C. Schmidt is a Professor of Computer Science, Associate Chair of the Computer Science and Engineering program, and a Senior Researcher in the Institute for Software Integrated Systems (ISIS) all at Vanderbilt University. He has published over 300 technical papers and 6 books that cover a range of research topics, including patterns, optimization techniques, and empirical analyses of software frameworks and domain-specific modeling environments that facilitate the development of distributed real-time and embedded (DRE) middleware and applications. Dr. Schmidt has served as a Deputy Office Director and a Program Manager at DARPA, where he lead the national R&D effort on middleware for DRE systems. In addition to his academic research and government service, Dr. Schmidt has over fifteen years of experience leading the development of ACE, TAO, CIAO, and CoSMIC, which are widely used, open-source DRE middleware frameworks and model-driven tools that contain a rich set of components and domain-specific languages that implement patterns and product-line architectures for high-performance DRE systems.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Madl, G., Abdelwahed, S. & Schmidt, D.C. Verifying distributed real-time properties of embedded systems via graph transformations and model checking. Real-Time Syst 33, 77–100 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11241-006-6883-y

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11241-006-6883-y

Keywords

Search

Navigation