PhD studentship: Demonstrating the feasibility of using model-based systems engineering (MBSE), to support the development and automated assurance of safety-critical software

The primary aim of the project is to demonstrate the feasibility of using model-based systems engineering (MBSE), to support the development and automated assurance of safety-critical software. In particular this work will focus on control and protection software for nuclear power plants. Previous work has shown the potential of an MBSE approach based on David Parnas’ Software Cost Reduction (SCR) method for automatically generating protection software from formal specifications. However protection software is simple, and the extension of the approach to control software, and the automation of assurance (verification and validation) is challenging. This project forms part of a programme of work funded by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) at a number of Universities, including Cambridge and York.

Research supervision
If successful, you will conduct your research under the co-supervision of:

Professor John McDermid is a world leading international expert on the development and assessment of high integrity computer- based systems.
Dr Richard Hawkins is an expert in software safety assurance and safety cases.

You will be part of the High Integrity Systems Engineering (HISE) research group but with strong links to the Enterprise Systems (ES) group, who have considerable expertise in model-based development, particularly using Eclipse and related tools.

Keywords: Safety-critical; MBSE; Software assurance; Safety analysis.