Course abstract

Embedded software control many of the safety-critical systems that we deal with in everyday life: for instance, modern cars are equipped with software to automatically change gears; pacemakers come with a software controller to regulate heart beat; aircrafts have flight control software, and so on. Typically, these (software) controllers have to make decisions based on inputs coming from multiple interacting components. As the size and the number of interacting components increase, the design and verification of controllers becomes increasingly complex. Model checking is a field of research that addresses this challenge by making use of mathematical models in the design and verification of controllers. The main idea is to look at the system as a mathematical model - commonly used models are extensions of finite-state machines. Design requirements on the controller then get translated to suitable questions on these mathematical models.The goal of this course is to understand some of the techniques and tools used in the process of model-checking.