DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE TARI ROROHIKO Formal Methods at Waikato The University of Waikato Department of Computer Science Formal Methods Group

June 2005 © THE UNIVERSITY OF WAIKATO TE WHARE WANANGA O WAIKATO 2 Our central idea:  Software Engineering should be based on secure, precise, unambiguous foundations  Use mathematics (in particular, logic) to model and then investigate software systems  Do this before time and money is invested in implementing them

June 2005 © THE UNIVERSITY OF WAIKATO TE WHARE WANANGA O WAIKATO 3 Our projects  Model Checking  Components and Discrete Event Systems  Z support tools  Z-based refinement techniques  Formal Methods, HCI and GUI design  μ-Charts: theories and tools  Specification-Based Testing

June 2005 © THE UNIVERSITY OF WAIKATO TE WHARE WANANGA O WAIKATO 4 Reactive Systems Technical devices  Household equipment  Automotive electronics  Industrial plants All these are …  often safety-critical  reactive systems

June 2005 © THE UNIVERSITY OF WAIKATO TE WHARE WANANGA O WAIKATO 5 Charts  A simplification and rational reconstruction of Statecharts (Harel, now in UML too!!)  Semantics given in Z  Refinement rules then derived  Tools for editing and translation  Gives access to existing proof tools

June 2005 © THE UNIVERSITY OF WAIKATO TE WHARE WANANGA O WAIKATO 6 Charts

June 2005 © THE UNIVERSITY OF WAIKATO TE WHARE WANANGA O WAIKATO 7 Components  ‘Plug-and-play’ requires reliable components  Our goal—to model in as direct a style as possible

June 2005 © THE UNIVERSITY OF WAIKATO TE WHARE WANANGA O WAIKATO 8 Components  Can take existing state models and events models and glue together Makes tool re-use easier Have to accept each model on all-or-nothing basis  We aim to define a model that treats states and events on equal footing, taking what best fits our needs from a range of models

June 2005 © THE UNIVERSITY OF WAIKATO TE WHARE WANANGA O WAIKATO 9 Formal Methods, HCI and GUI Design The challenges:  Finding suitable formal models and methods to describe GUIs  Capturing HCI requirements at the specification stage  Developing suitable refinements

June 2005 © THE UNIVERSITY OF WAIKATO TE WHARE WANANGA O WAIKATO 10 Formal Methods, HCI and GUI Design The next steps:  Exploration of suitable models for fully describing GUIs formally  Examination of formalising ‘domain knowledge’  Development of rigorous refinement methods for GUIs

June 2005 © THE UNIVERSITY OF WAIKATO TE WHARE WANANGA O WAIKATO 11 Our people  Judy Bowen, PhD student  Petra Malik, Research Fellow  Robi Malik, Lecturer  Greg Reeve, recently completed PhD student  Steve Reeves, Professor  David Streader, Senior Research Fellow  Mark Utting, Senior Lecturer