February 2008 Potential thesis projects 1

Potential thesis projects

Peter Gorm Larsen (Peter Gorm Larsen (pgl@iha.dk) )

Professor (ingeniørdocent) atProfessor (ingeniørdocent) at

Engineering College of AarhusEngineering College of Aarhus

February 2008 Potential thesis projects 2

Research Areas• Semantic clarifications combined with tool building

• Overture on top of Eclipse

• Open source community

• International angle

• Lots of students can experiment with deltas

• Applications of new extensions for distributed real-time embedded systems• First project by Hugo Macedo on pacemaker

• Rasmus Sørensen and Jasper Nygaard on CyberRail

• “Existing” projects• SKATT (Sikrere og Klogere produkter gennem

Anvendelse af Trådløs Teknologi)

• MC-HA (Minimum Configuration – Home Automation)

February 2008 Potential thesis projects 3

Vienna Development Method

• Invented at IBM’s labs in Vienna in the 70’s• VDM-SL and VDM++

• ISO Standardisation of VDM-SL

• VDM++ is an object-oriented extension

• Model-oriented specification:• Simple, abstract data types

• Invariants to restrict membership• Implicit specification (pre/post)• Explicit specification (functional or imperative)

February 2008 Potential thesis projects

Overture versus VDMTools

• VDMTools (http://www.vdmtools.jp/en)

• Closed source, proprietary (available under NDA)• Monolithic architecture (single binary), C++• Optimized for performance, industry strength

• Overture Tool project (http://www.overturetool.org)

• Open source, GPL license• Plug-in architecture, Eclipse, Java• Optimized for flexibility, targets academic use• (partly) developed using VDMTools

February 2008 Potential thesis projects 5

VDMTools Overview

The Rose-VDM++ Link

Document Generator

Code Generators- C++, Java

Syntax & Type Checker

API (Corba), DL Facility

Interpreter (Debugger)

Integrity CheckerJava to VDM++

February 2008 Potential thesis projects 6

Basic automatic checks and GUI

Overture Architecture Overview

Syntax Check

Connection to standard developm

ent environments

UML, SysMLAADL

VisualisationSupport

Code Generators- C++, Java

JML coupling

ReverseEngineering

support

Type Check

Refactoringsupport

OML editorWith

syntaxhighlighting

Validation support

PrettyPrinting

Withcoverage

Interpreter (Debugger)

With APIcapabilities

Test Generation

support

VisualizationSupport forExecution

tracesVerification support

ProofObligationgeneration

AutomaticProof

support

InteractiveProof

support

ModelCheckingsupport

EclipseAST

Not yet available OngoingCurrently draft available

February 2008 Potential thesis projects

Automatic AST generation

OVERTUREAST spec

(VDM-SL subset)ASTGEN sed script

JAVAinterfaces

VDM++classes

VDMTools

javaclasses

sed

modified javaclasses“implements”● specified in VDM++

● code generated

other users can use these specs to specify their own OVERTURE extensions (in VDM++)

February 2008 Potential thesis projects

Support for language experiments

• Generic recipe to follow:

• Change the AST definition• Re-generate the AST (AstGen & VDMTools)• Modify the scanner / parser (jflex, byaccj)• Recompile java code

• Turn-around time:

• 2 hours (minor changes)• 1 day (larger changes)

February 2008 Potential thesis projects

Support for tool development (1)

• The (preferred) VDM++ recipe

• Take the AST VDM++ “interfaces” (IOml*) as is• Take VDM++ class “OmlVisitor”• Refactor (rename) this class• Specify the required functionality directly in VDM++• Validate the specification using VDMTools• Generate the Java implementation using VDMTools• Compile and integrate into Eclipse plug-in

February 2008 Potential thesis projects

Support for tool development (2)

• Alternate Java recipe

• Take the AST Java interface classes• Take the OmlVisitor.java code template• Refactor (rename) this class• Write your tool directly in Java• Compile and integrate into Eclipse plug-in

February 2008 Potential thesis projects 11

The Active VDM Community

• VDM Portal (http://www.vdmportal.org/) • The CSK VDM Group• The Overture Open-Source Initiative

• On top of Eclipse platform (http://www.overturetool.org)

• Regular net meetings

• Academic collaboration

• MSc theses: (DK) type checker (DK), interpreter (Portugal), proof support (NL), test automation (Portugal), JML combination (Portugal), proof obligation generation (Portugal)

• Pacemaker grand challenge

February 2008 Potential thesis projects 12

The Pacemaker Challenge

• A Safety-Critical Application• Report over project made by Hugo Macedo• 4 different models made in VDM

• High-level VDM-SL model

• Sequential VDM++ model

• Concurrent VDM++ model

• Real-time distributed VDM++ model

• Follow VICE Guidelines + new validation conjectures over timed traces

• http://www.cas.mcmaster.ca/sqrl/pacemaker.htm

February 2008 Potential thesis projects 13

Jasper Nygaard and Rasmus Sørensen

Evaluating Distributed Architectures using VDM++ Real-Time modeling with a Proof Of Concept Implementation

February 2008 Potential thesis projects 14

Jasper and Rasmus MSc Results

• VDM++, model and test large systems.• Repeater, JAVTU

• VDM++ as an engineering tool.• Development process

• Importance and ease of abstraction

• Deployments Schemes

• Communication Platform• Token Device, Technology

• Distributed Architecture• Potential Bottlenecks

• SMS Retry Algorithm.

• Context Awareness

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February 2008 Potential thesis projects 15

SKATT

• Sikrere og Klogere produkter gennem Anvendelse af Trådløs Teknologi

• Together with:• Alexandra

• Grundfos

• Skov

• Adding wireless capability to existing products• A number of student projects have already been made:

• AFP with LIAB application

• AFP with Grundfos application

• Multidisciplinært Ingeniørprojekt, (Skov) 3 MSc E-students

February 2008 Potential thesis projects 16

MC-HA

• Minimum Configuration – Home Automation• Electronic gadgets enter private homes to

• Improve comfort

• Save energy

• How to enable Mr and Mrs Jensen to set it up?• Different standards exists both for wired and wireless• Interoperability must be ensured by common easy

configuration• New project application is underway