Development of dependable controllers in the context of machines design

Abstract

In the domain of machines' design, one of the most important issues to solve is related with the controller's design, mainly, guaranteeing that the machine will behave as expected. In order to achieve a dependable controller, some steps can be considered, such as the formalization of its specification - before being translated to the program that will be inserted in the controller device - and the respective analysis and verification. Nowadays, some formal analysis techniques, such as formal verification, are used to achieve this purpose. The dependability of a controller, however, is impacted by its execution context. This paper proposes an approach for the formal verification of the specification of mechatronic system's controllers, which considers, on the formal verification tasks, the behavior of the plant and the behavior of the Human Machine Interface of the Mechatronic system. Some conclusions are extrapolated for other systems of the same kind.