Formal validation of fault-tolerance mechanisms inside GUARDS

In this paper we report the experiments carried out during the specification and validation of the fault-tolerance mechanisms developed in the European project Generic Upgradable Architecture for Real-time Dependable Systems (GUARDS). These mechanisms are the components of an architecture developed for embedded safety-critical systems. The validation approach is based on model-checking techniques and exploits the verification methodology supported by the Just Another Concurrency Kit (JACK) environment. The properties that guarantee the desired behaviour of the mechanisms are specified as temporal logic formulae; the JACK model-checker is then used to verify that the behaviour of the mechanisms satisfy such properties also in the presence of faults. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.