A software environment for custom simulation and monitoring of real-time specifications

Abstract

The testing and validation of formal specifications of high assurance real time systems requires an extensible simulation environment with support for users to generate events, customize displays, and monitor event traces. The paper describes MTSim, a customizable simulation platform for the Modechart Toolset (MT). MTSim provides support for "plugging in" user defined viewers as well as user participation in the generation of simulations by allowing users to inject events into the execution trace. Moreover, MTSim provides monitoring and assertion checking of execution traces and the invocation of user specified handlers upon assertion violation. The paper also introduces a MTSim component called WebSim, a suite of simulation tools for MT, and an application specific component of MTSim, which displays the cockpit of an F-18 aircraft and models its bomb release function.