affiliated with the
European Joint Conferences on Theory and Practice of Software (ETAPS 2017)
 
29 April, 2017
Uppsala, Sweden

Aim

Logics and techniques for automated reasoning have often been developed with formal analysis and formal verification in mind. To show applicability, toy examples or tiny case studies are typically presented in research papers. Since the theory needs to be developed first, this approach is reasonable.
However, to show that a developed approach actually scales to real systems, large case studies are essential. The development of formal models of real systems usually requires a perfect understanding of informal descriptions of the system—sometimes found in RFCs or other standard documents—which are usually just written in English. Based on the type of system, an adequate specification formalism needs to be chosen, and the informal specification translated into it. Examples for such formalisms include process and program algebra, Petri nets, variations of automata, as well as timed, stochastic and probabilistic extensions of these formalisms. Abstraction from unimportant details then yields an accurate, formal model of the real system.
The process of developing a detailed and accurate model usually takes a large amount of time, often months or years; without even starting a formal analysis. When publishing the results on a formal analysis in a scientific paper, details of the model have to be skipped due to lack of space, and often the lessons learnt from modelling are not discussed since they are not the main focus of the paper.
The workshop aims at discussing exactly these unmentioned lessons.
Examples are:
  • Which formalism is chosen, and why?
  • Which abstractions have to be made and why?
  • How are important characteristics of the system modelled?
  • Were there any complications while modelling the system?
  • Which measures were taken to guarantee the accuracy of the model?
The workshop emphasises modelling over verification. In particular, we invite papers that present full Models of Real Systems, which may lay the basis for future formal analysis. The workshop will bring together researchers from different communities that all aim at verifying real systems and are developing formal models for such systems. Areas where large models often occur are within networks, (trustworthy) systems and software verification (from byte code up to programming- and specification languages). An aim of the workshop is to present different modelling approaches and discuss pros and cons for each of them.

Programme

7:30-8:30 Registration
8:30-10:00 Data Transfer
Evaluating The Stream Control Transmission Protocol Using Uppaal
     Shruti Saini, Ansgar Fehnker
Split, Send, Reassemble: A Formal Specification of a CAN bus Protocol Stack
     Rob van Glabbeek, Peter Höfner
Modelling, Verification, and Comparative Performance Analysis of the B.A.T.M.A.N. Protocol
     Kaylash Chaudhary, Ansgar Fehnker, Vinay Mehta
10:00-10:30 Coffee Break
10:30-12:00 Coordination and Trust
Formalizing Memory Accesses and Interrupts
     Reto Achermann, Lukas Humbel, David Cock, Timothy Roscoe
Modelling and Verification of a Cluster-tree Formation Protocol Implementation for the IEEE 802.15.4 TSCH MAC Operation Mode
     Mahmoud Talebi, Jan Friso Groote, Conrad Dandelski
A Large Term Rewrite System Modelling a Pioneering Cryptographic Algorithm
     Hubert Garavel, Lina Marsso
12:00-14:00 Lunch
14:00-15:30 Productivity
Modelling of Autosar Libraries for Large Scale Testing
     Wojciech Mostowski, Thomas Arts, John Hughes
A Benchmark on Reliability of Complex Discrete Systems: Emergency Power Supply of a Nuclear Power Plant
     Marc Bouissou
A Model-Derivation Framework for Software Analysis
     Bugra Mehmet Yildiz, Arend Rensink, Christoph Bockisch, Mehmet Aksit
15:30-16:00 Coffee Break
16:00-17:00 Robotics
The Unheralded Value of the Multiway Rendezvous: Illustration with the Production Cell Benchmark
     Hubert Garavel, Wendelin Serwe
Towards Probabilistic Formal Modeling of Robotic Cell Injection System
     Muhammad Usama Sardar, Osman Hasan
17:15-17:45 Business meeting on MARS

Proceedings

The proceedings for this workshop are published in the open access series Electronic Proceedings in Theoretical Computer Science (EPTCS). They can be found at http://eptcs.web.cse.unsw.edu.au/content.cgi?MARS2017.

Submission

Submissions must be unpublished and not be submitted for publication elsewhere. Contributions are limited to 12 pages EPTCS style (not counting the appendices), but shorter extended abstracts are welcome. Appendices (of arbitrary length) can be used to present all details of a formalised model; the appendices will be part of the proceedings. In case a formal model is presented that is modelled in some formalism or tool, such as timed automata for Uppaal or formal proofs for Isabelle/HOL, these models have to be submitted as well. They will be published as part of the proceedings, and will be made available in our Repository of Models for Formal Analysis of Real Systems.
Submissions must be in English and submitted in PDF format via EasyChair. All submissions will be peer reviewed by at least three referees based on their novelty, relevance and technical merit. The proceedings will be published as part of the open access series Electronic Proceedings in Theoretical Computer Science (EPTCS).

Important Dates (AoE)

Submission:Friday 13 January 2017 Friday 20 January 2017
Notification:Monday 13 February 2017
Final version:Monday 27 February 2017
Workshop:Saturday 29 April 2017

Call for Papers

As mentioned above, we invite papers that present full Models of Real Systems, which may lay the basis for future formal analysis. The full Call for Papers can be found here.

Program Committee

Hubert Garavel (INRIA, France)
Jan Friso Groote (Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands)
Holger Hermanns (Saarland University, Germany)
Peter Höfner (Data61, CSIRO, Australia)
Gerard Holzmann (NASA/JPL, USA)
Pavel Krcal (Lloyd's Register, Sweden)
Kim G. Larsen (Aalborg University, Denmark)
David Parker (University of Birmingham, United Kingdom)
Frits Vaandrager (Radboud University, The Netherlands)
Marcel Verhoef (European Space Agency, ESTEC, The Netherlands)
Josef Widder (TU Wien, Austria)

Venue and Travel Information

The workshop is part of the European Joint Conferences on Theory and Practice of Software (ETAPS 2017). Information about venue and travelling in/to Sweden can be found at the webpage of ETAPS.

Workshop Organisers and Contact

Holger Hermanns Peter Höfner
Saarland University
Campus Saarbrücken
66123 Saarbrücken
Germany
Data61, CSIRO
Locked Bag 6016
Sydney, NSW 1466
Australia