Simplifying the Formal Verification of Safety Requirements in Zone Controllers Through Problem Frames and Constraint-Based Projection

Zhengheng Yuan, Xiaohong Chen, Jing Liu, Yijun Yu, Haiying Sun, Tingliang Zhou, Zhi Jin
2018 IEEE transactions on intelligent transportation systems (Print)  
Formal methods have been applied widely to verifying the safety requirements of Communication-Based Train Control (CBTC) systems, while the problem situations could be much simplified. In industrial practices of CBTC systems, however, huge complexity arises, which renders those methods nearly impossible to apply. In this paper, we aim to reduce the state space of formal verification problems in Zone Controller, a sub-system of a typical CBTC. We achieve the simplification goal by reducing the
more » ... tal number of device variables. To do this, two projection methods are proposed based on Problem Frames and constraints, respectively. The Problem Frames based method decomposes the system according to sub-properties through functional decomposition, whilst the constraints based projection method removes redundant variables. Our industrial case study demonstrates the feasibility though an evaluation, confirming that these two methods are effective in reducing the state spaces of complex verification problems in this application domain.
doi:10.1109/tits.2018.2869633 fatcat:hu2o2hh6nfewvkvk25orgm5sxq