Formal Methods: Hybrid Event-B and Rodin

These days, the world is increasingly being populated with systems that interact directly with the physical world. Of course such systems have existed for a long time in niche safety-critical areas, eg. avionics, train control, nuclear plant shutdown, etc. Now the physical world is described using continuous mathematics, while the systems in contact with it are digital, being described using discrete mathematics. These two spheres don’t mix terribly well, and the interface has typically been handled by ad hoc means. The hybrid and cyberphysical systems that are increasingly seen today are hard to analyse, and one way of approaching their design is top-down, where their properties are controlled from the outset and built up incrementally. The Event-B formalism is a discrete top-down formal development methodology which is now ripe for extension into the hybrid domain. The aim of the present strand of research is to enhance the Rodin Toolset for Event-B with the requisite continuous capabilities.

Interested individuals should contact Dr. Richard Banach ([Email Address Removed]) in the first instance.