Abstract

Formal methods play an important part in the development as well as testing stages of software and hardware systems. A significant and often overlooked part of the process is the development of specifications and correctness requirements for the system under test. Traditionally, English has been used as the specification language, which has resulted in verbose and difficult to use specification documents that are usually abandoned during product development. This research focuses on investigating the use of Live Sequence Charts (LSCs), a graphical and intuitive language directly suited for expressing communication behaviors of a system as the specification language for a system under test. The research presents two methods for using LSCs as a specification language: first, by translating LSCs to temporal logic, and second, by translating LSCs to an automaton structure that is directly suited for formal verification of systems. The research first presents the translation for each method and further, identifies the pros and cons for each verification method.

Degree

PhD

College and Department

Physical and Mathematical Sciences; Computer Science

Rights

http://lib.byu.edu/about/copyright/