Abstract
Statechart modelling notations, with so-called ‘run to completion’ semantics and simulation tools for validation, are popular with engineers for designing systems. However, they do not support formal refinement and they lack formal static verification methods and tools. For example, properties concerning the synchronisation between different parts of a system may be difficult to verify for all scenarios, and impossible to verify at an abstract level before the full details of sub-states have been added. 
, on the other hand, is based on refinement from an initial abstraction and is designed to make formal verification by automatic theorem provers feasible, restricting instantiation and testing to a validation role. In this paper, we introduce a notion of refinement, similar to that of 
, into a ‘run to completion’ Statechart modelling notation, and leverage 
’s tool support for proof. We describe the pitfalls in translating ‘run to completion’ models into 
refinements and suggest a solution. We illustrate the approach using our prototype translation tools and show by example, how a synchronisation property between parallel Statecharts can be automatically proven at an intermediate refinement level.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
In SCXML the triggers are called ‘events’, however, we refer to them as ‘triggers’ to avoid confusion with
. - 2.
Here, \(\mathrm {partition(S, T1, T2, \ldots )}\) means the set S is partitioned into disjoint (sub-)sets \(T1, T2, \ldots \). that cover S.
.References
Abrial, J.-R.: Modeling in Event-B: System and Software Engineering. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (2010)
Abrial, J.-R., Butler, M., Hallerstede, S., Hoang, T.S., Mehta, F., Voisin, L.: Rodin: An open toolset for modelling and reasoning in Event-B. Softw. Tools Technol. Transf. 12(6), 447–466 (2010)
David, A., Möller, M.O., Yi, W.: Formal verification of UML statecharts with real-time extensions. In: Kutsche, R.-D., Weber, H. (eds.) FASE 2002. LNCS, vol. 2306, pp. 218–232. Springer, Heidelberg (2002). https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-45923-5_15
Eclipse Foundation: Sirius Project Website. https://eclipse.org/sirius/overview.html. Accessed Mar 2016
Eshuis, R.: Reconciling statechart semantics. Sci. Comput. Program. 74(3), 65–99 (2009)
Hansen, C., Syriani, E., Lucio, L.: Towards controlling refinements of statecharts. CoRR, abs/1503.07266 (2015)
Harel, D.: Statecharts: a visual formalism for complex systems. Sci. Comput. Program. 8(3), 231–274 (1987)
Hoang, T.S.: An introduction to the Event-B modelling method. In: Romanovsky, A., Thomas, M. (eds.) Industrial Deployment of System Engineering Methods, pp. 211–236. Springer, Heidelberg (2013)
Hoang, T.S., Butler, M., Reichl, K.: The hybrid ERTMS/ETCS level 3 case study. In: Butler, M., Raschke, A., Hoang, T.S., Reichl, K. (eds.) ABZ 2018. LNCS, vol. 10817, pp. 251–261. Springer, Cham (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91271-4_17
Hoang, T.S., Snook, C., Ladenberger, L., Butler, M.: Validating the requirements and design of a hemodialysis machine using iUML-B, BMotion studio, and co-simulation. In: Butler, M., Schewe, K.-D., Mashkoor, A., Biro, M. (eds.) ABZ 2016. LNCS, vol. 9675, pp. 360–375. Springer, Cham (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-33600-8_31
Lima, L., et al.: An integrated semantics for reasoning about SysML design models using refinement. Softw. Syst. Model. 16(3), 875–902 (2017)
Maraninchi, F.: The Argos language: graphical representation of automata and description of reactive systems. In: IEEE Workshop on Visual Languages (1991)
Mashkoor, A.: The hemodialysis machine case study. In: Butler, M., Schewe, K.-D., Mashkoor, A., Biro, M. (eds.) ABZ 2016. LNCS, vol. 9675, pp. 329–343. Springer, Cham (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-33600-8_29
Meng, S., Naixiao, Z., Barbosa, L.S.: On semantics and refinement of UML statecharts: a coalgebraic view. In: Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Software Engineering and Formal Methods, SEFM 2004, pp. 164–173, September 2004
Miyazawa, A., Cavalcanti, A.: Formal refinement in SysML. In: Albert, E., Sekerinski, E. (eds.) IFM 2014. LNCS, vol. 8739, pp. 155–170. Springer, Cham (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-10181-1_10
Morris, K., Snook, C.: Reconciling SCXML statechart representations and Event-B lower level semantics. In: HCCV - Workshop on High-Consequence Control Verification (2016)
Rumbaugh, J., Jacobson, I., Booch, G.: Unified Modeling Language Reference Manual, 2nd edn. Pearson Higher Education, Upper Saddle River (2004)
Snook, C.: iUML-B statemachines. In: Proceedings of the Rodin Workshop 2014, Toulouse, France (2014). http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/365301/
Snook, C., Butler, M.: UML-B: formal modeling and design aided by UML. ACM Trans. Softw. Eng. Methodol. 15(1), 92–122 (2006)
Snook, C., Savicks, V., Butler, M.: Verification of UML models by translation to UML-B. In: Aichernig, B.K., de Boer, F.S., Bonsangue, M.M. (eds.) FMCO 2010. LNCS, vol. 6957, pp. 251–266. Springer, Heidelberg (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-25271-6_13
Szasz, N., Vilanova, P.: Behavioral refinements of UML-Statecharts. Technical report RT 10–13, Universidad de la República, Montevideo, Uruguay (2010)
W3C: State chart XML SCXML: State machine notation for control abstraction. http://www.w3.org/TR/scxml/. Accessed Sept 2015
Acknowledgment
The authors would like to thank Jason Michnovicz for developing the IDS example used throughout the manuscript.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Morris, K., Snook, C., Hoang, T.S., Armstrong, R., Butler, M. (2019). Refinement of Statecharts with Run-to-Completion Semantics. In: Artho, C., Ölveczky, P. (eds) Formal Techniques for Safety-Critical Systems. FTSCS 2018. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 1008. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-12988-0_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-12988-0_8
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-12987-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-12988-0
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)