Abstract Simulation: A Static Analysis of Simulink Models

Simulink is one of the most widely used industrial tools to design embedded systems. Applying formal methods sooner in the cycle of development is an important industrial challenge in order to reduce the cost of bug fixing. In this article, we introduce a new method, called abstract simulation and based on abstract interpretation of Simulink models. Abstract simulation uses several numerical domains such as a domain for Taylor forms or floating-point numbers with errors. These domains allow us to estimate errors introduced by numerical algorithms and by computations during simulations. As a result, our method makes it possible to validate numerical behaviors of embedded systems modeled in Simulink. A prototype has been implemented and experimental results are commented.