Distributed Cyber Physical Systems Software Model Checking using Timed Automata

Formal validation of the design and properties of distributed software entities for Cyber Physical Systems (CPS) is challenging due to the non-linear sequence of operations and multiple possible inter-leavings of events and processes. Current model-checking tools are more suited to represent independent systems or pieces of code that are self-contained and rarely consider interactions between different participants of a composite distributed software application. This paper introduces an automated model generation tool for distributed CPS software applications written in a software framework called RIAPS. The tool combines the application model, edge deployment architecture, and individual component level source code annotated with user-supplied timing parameters to produce a network of Timed Automata models compatible with the popular model checker UPPAAL. The generated model can then be verified using UPPAAL’s formal verification engine. The article uses a simple distributed application example CPS to demonstrate how the tool can be used to verify and compare the design and timing of different deployment configurations.