Requirements specification for process-control systems

Author

Leveson, Nancy G. ; Heimdahl, Mats Per Erik ; Hildreth, Holly ; Reese, Jon Damon

Author_Institution

Dept. of Comput. Sci. & Eng., Washington Univ., Seattle, WA, USA

Volume

20

Issue

9

fYear

1994

fDate

9/1/1994 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

684

Lastpage

707

Abstract

The paper describes an approach to writing requirements specifications for process-control systems, a specification language that supports this approach, and an example application of the approach and the language on an industrial aircraft collision avoidance system (TCAS II). The example specification demonstrates: the practicality of writing a formal requirements specification for a complex, process-control system; and the feasibility of building a formal model of a system using a specification language that is readable and reviewable by application experts who are not computer scientists or mathematicians. Some lessons learned in the process of this work, which are applicable both to forward and reverse engineering, are also presented

Keywords

aerospace computing; aircraft instrumentation; formal specification; position control; process computer control; process control; specification languages; TCAS II; example application; example specification; formal model; formal requirements specification; industrial aircraft collision avoidance system; process-control systems; requirements specification; reverse engineering; specification language; Computer science; Control systems; Costs; Reverse engineering; Software prototyping; Software safety; Software systems; Specification languages; System testing; Writing;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Software Engineering, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0098-5589

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/32.317428

Filename

317428