Abstract

While autonomous systems offer great promise in terms of capability and flexibility, their reliability is particularly hard to assess. This paper describes research to apply formal verification methods to languages used to develop autonomy software. In particular, we describe tools that automatically convert autonomy software into formal models that are then verified using model checking. This approach has been applied to MPL code for the Livingstone fault diagnosis system and to TDL task descriptions for mobile robot systems. Our long-term objective is to create tools that enable engineers and roboticists to use formal verification as part of the normal software development cycle. 1 Introduction Autonomous systems rely on intelligent inference capabilities to be able to take appropriate actions even in unforeseen circumstances. They enable a whole range of new applications, such as sending autonomous robots to places where it is too dangerous or expensive for humans to go, and where...

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