Periodic Reporting for period 1 - ADVANCE (Addressing Verification and Validation Challenges in Future Cyber-Physical Systems)
Période du rapport: 2019-01-01 au 2022-10-31
In the last decade, technology has rapidly expanded to multiple aspects of our lives. The physical world is being constantly enhanced by technology and connectivity, for reasons ranging from improvement in our lives to pure entertainment. Examples of this trend are evident in emerging technologies like autonomous transportation, smart cities, home and industry automation. The scientific community identifies such kind of systems as Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs), that is, systems where the physical aspects are deeply integrated with the communication and computing (cyber) parts: they provide physical systems with new “intelligent” capabilities. Such integration involves multiple interconnected embedded systems, with blurred boundaries between, and a strong interaction with the physical world.
The tight interaction with the physical world often means that CPSs, if not operating properly, can cause harm to users and/or the environment. In other words, CPSs are often safety-critical systems, and must therefore be subject to a rigorous Verification and Validation (V&V) process to heck if they meet the specifications and fulfill the intended use, goals and objectives. While the V&V practices are relatively established for traditional systems, like railways, avionics, space, or automotive, the current transition towards CPSs is raising significant challenges in the industry. New techniques and technologies are being introduced, yet the V&V practices are not improving with the same pace.
The scientific objective of the ADVANCE project is to conceive new approaches to support the Verification and Validation (V&V) of Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS). In order to achieve this goal, the project consortium is researching new techniques, methods, and tools to improve the effectiveness and efficacy of the V&V process. ADVANCE will focus on two main aspects of V&V. The first aspect is related with the definition of techniques to collect evidences of the quality (in lato sensu) of a cyber-physical system (this involves research on system modelling, testing, fault forecast, and structured procedures like failure mode and effect analysis). The second aspect is related with the techniques that allow to manage and analyse data of this type of systems (including data related with the development process used, like requirements management, or traceability).
The ADVANCE project also has the strategic objective of creating an international network of expertise and collaboration in the context of V&V of cyber-physical systems. Besides allowing the consortium to reach the project’s scientific objectives, the established relations allow training students and professionals in V&V and with respect to the state of the art. Besides the technical challenges, it is important to notice that skilled professionals in V&V, software testing, and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) are currently lacking, at a world level. So, within the project scope, training material is to be produced on the topic or V&V of cyber-physical systems and based on the project outcomes. The fact that the project consortium brings together V&V experts which have different skills and different backgrounds is a strong foundation for creating synergies and for very targeted transfer of knowledge and collaboration.
The tight interaction with the physical world often means that CPSs, if not operating properly, can cause harm to users and/or the environment. In other words, CPSs are often safety-critical systems, and must therefore be subject to a rigorous Verification and Validation (V&V) process to heck if they meet the specifications and fulfill the intended use, goals and objectives. While the V&V practices are relatively established for traditional systems, like railways, avionics, space, or automotive, the current transition towards CPSs is raising significant challenges in the industry. New techniques and technologies are being introduced, yet the V&V practices are not improving with the same pace.
The scientific objective of the ADVANCE project is to conceive new approaches to support the Verification and Validation (V&V) of Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS). In order to achieve this goal, the project consortium is researching new techniques, methods, and tools to improve the effectiveness and efficacy of the V&V process. ADVANCE will focus on two main aspects of V&V. The first aspect is related with the definition of techniques to collect evidences of the quality (in lato sensu) of a cyber-physical system (this involves research on system modelling, testing, fault forecast, and structured procedures like failure mode and effect analysis). The second aspect is related with the techniques that allow to manage and analyse data of this type of systems (including data related with the development process used, like requirements management, or traceability).
The ADVANCE project also has the strategic objective of creating an international network of expertise and collaboration in the context of V&V of cyber-physical systems. Besides allowing the consortium to reach the project’s scientific objectives, the established relations allow training students and professionals in V&V and with respect to the state of the art. Besides the technical challenges, it is important to notice that skilled professionals in V&V, software testing, and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) are currently lacking, at a world level. So, within the project scope, training material is to be produced on the topic or V&V of cyber-physical systems and based on the project outcomes. The fact that the project consortium brings together V&V experts which have different skills and different backgrounds is a strong foundation for creating synergies and for very targeted transfer of knowledge and collaboration.
The project is organized in three technical Work Packages. The project starts with the collection of requirements and definition of scenarios (WP1), and then the main body of the project is composed of the parallel execution of four tasks that address different aspects of performing V&V on CPSs (WP2 and WP3). The parallel execution of such tasks will enable an effective transfer of knowledge and cross-fertilization interactions between partners. The final part of the project will be devoted to creating the ADVANCE Training Suite (WP4), and to perform a retrospective analysis of the work developed within the project, and define a research roadmap for further research on CPSs (WP1).
WP1: The first objective was to determine the actual requirements of V&V activities for future CPSs. This objective was pursued by reviewing the current state of the art and analysing requirements and scenarios for the two reference use cases brought to the project by INPE and ResilTech.
The first use case is the Brazilian Environmental Data Collection System (BEDCS), which is maintained by the National Space Research Institute of Brazil (INPE), and it is essentially an environmental data collection system that includes three segments: space, ground, and user.
The second use case refers to the validation of safety-critical open-source operating systems for large-scale CPS deployments. This use case, which is owned by Resiltech, Italy, is set around the OSADL SIL2LinuxMP project whose goal aims at the certification of an embedded GNU Linux real time operating system, according to established standards, namely IEC 61508, which is at the basis of the most relevant safety standards used nowadays.
A confidential report has been produced describing the reference scenarios and the related requirements, and a public report has been made available with the analysis of the state of the art in the V&V of CPSs.
WP2: The objective of this WP is to devise and apply V&V techniques for collecting evidences on CPSs. We included here techniques that can be used to directly verify and validate the system design and the implementation of a system or its subsystems.
A confidential report has been produced with the preliminary results of WP2 activities, on the following topics: i) model-based techniques (mostly formal approaches for V&V), experimental techniques (such as robustness testing, fault injection), and hybrid techniques (which tend to combine both approaches).
WP3: The objective of this WP is to devise and apply techniques for the management and analysis of data related to the V&Vprocess. In fact, besides the application of the actual V&V techniques, one of the main challenges in the V&V of complex systems is how to manage the large amount of data that is required and produced during the different phases. This includes, for example, requirements, models, field data, simulation results, etc.
A confidential report has been produced with the preliminary results of WP3 activities, on the following topics: i) Managing data using knowledge graphs and V&V classifications; ii) Automating V&V-related data analysis; iii) Using machine learning and other AI techniques to support the analysis of V&V data. The work was carried out on both use cases.
WP1: The first objective was to determine the actual requirements of V&V activities for future CPSs. This objective was pursued by reviewing the current state of the art and analysing requirements and scenarios for the two reference use cases brought to the project by INPE and ResilTech.
The first use case is the Brazilian Environmental Data Collection System (BEDCS), which is maintained by the National Space Research Institute of Brazil (INPE), and it is essentially an environmental data collection system that includes three segments: space, ground, and user.
The second use case refers to the validation of safety-critical open-source operating systems for large-scale CPS deployments. This use case, which is owned by Resiltech, Italy, is set around the OSADL SIL2LinuxMP project whose goal aims at the certification of an embedded GNU Linux real time operating system, according to established standards, namely IEC 61508, which is at the basis of the most relevant safety standards used nowadays.
A confidential report has been produced describing the reference scenarios and the related requirements, and a public report has been made available with the analysis of the state of the art in the V&V of CPSs.
WP2: The objective of this WP is to devise and apply V&V techniques for collecting evidences on CPSs. We included here techniques that can be used to directly verify and validate the system design and the implementation of a system or its subsystems.
A confidential report has been produced with the preliminary results of WP2 activities, on the following topics: i) model-based techniques (mostly formal approaches for V&V), experimental techniques (such as robustness testing, fault injection), and hybrid techniques (which tend to combine both approaches).
WP3: The objective of this WP is to devise and apply techniques for the management and analysis of data related to the V&Vprocess. In fact, besides the application of the actual V&V techniques, one of the main challenges in the V&V of complex systems is how to manage the large amount of data that is required and produced during the different phases. This includes, for example, requirements, models, field data, simulation results, etc.
A confidential report has been produced with the preliminary results of WP3 activities, on the following topics: i) Managing data using knowledge graphs and V&V classifications; ii) Automating V&V-related data analysis; iii) Using machine learning and other AI techniques to support the analysis of V&V data. The work was carried out on both use cases.
Expected outcomes include:
- the opportunity for carrying out joint research work, which allows exploring the heterogeneous expertise found across the consortium;
- the mobility opportunities which are the basis for supporting collaborative research;
- obtaining new skills on areas like fault injection, systems of systems, model-driven engineering, software and system design, or anomaly detection;
- the creation of training materials across different domains;
- transfer of knowledge to the industry.
Overall, ADVANCE aims at improving the European, Brazilian, and Colombian scientific excellence in the area of verification and validation of cyber-physical systems.
- the opportunity for carrying out joint research work, which allows exploring the heterogeneous expertise found across the consortium;
- the mobility opportunities which are the basis for supporting collaborative research;
- obtaining new skills on areas like fault injection, systems of systems, model-driven engineering, software and system design, or anomaly detection;
- the creation of training materials across different domains;
- transfer of knowledge to the industry.
Overall, ADVANCE aims at improving the European, Brazilian, and Colombian scientific excellence in the area of verification and validation of cyber-physical systems.