Addressing Verification and Validation Challenges in Future Cyber-Physical Systems

Project Information

ADVANCE

Grant agreement ID: 823788

DOI

10.3030/823788

Project closed

EC signature date 30 October 2018

Start date 1 January 2019

End date 31 October 2024

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 657 800,00

EU contribution

€ 437 000,00

Coordinated by

CONSORZIO INTERUNIVERSITARIO NAZIONALE PER L'INFORMATICA
Italy

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - ADVANCE (Addressing Verification and Validation Challenges in Future Cyber-Physical Systems)

Reporting period: 2022-11-01 to 2024-10-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

In the last decade, technology has rapidly expanded to multiple aspects of our lives. The physical world is being constantly enhanced by technology and connectivity, for reasons ranging from improvement in our lives to pure entertainment. Examples of this trend are evident in emerging technologies like autonomous transportation, smart cities, home and industry automation. The scientific community identifies such kind of systems as Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs), that is, systems where the physical aspects are deeply integrated with the communication and computing (cyber) parts: they provide physical systems with new “intelligent” capabilities. Such integration involves multiple interconnected embedded systems, with blurred boundaries between, and a strong interaction with the physical world.

The tight interaction with the physical world often means that CPSs, if not operating properly, can cause harm to users and/or the environment. In other words, CPSs are often safety-critical systems, and must therefore be subject to a rigorous Verification and Validation (V&V) process to heck if they meet the specifications and fulfill the intended use, goals and objectives. While the V&V practices are relatively established for traditional systems, like railways, avionics, space, or automotive, the current transition towards CPSs is raising significant challenges in the industry. New techniques and technologies are being introduced, yet the V&V practices are not improving with the same pace.

The scientific objective of the ADVANCE project is to conceive new approaches to support the Verification and Validation (V&V) of Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS). ADVANCE will focus on two main aspects of V&V. The first aspect is related with the definition of techniques to collect evidences of the quality (in lato sensu) of a cyber-physical system. The second aspect is related with the techniques that allow to manage and analyse data of this type of systems. Moreover, the ADVANCE project also has the strategic objective of creating an international network of expertise and collaboration in the context of V&V of cyber-physical systems.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The project is organized in six Work Packages. The project starts with the collection of requirements and definition of scenarios (WP1), and then the main body of the project is composed of the parallel execution of four tasks that address different aspects of performing V&V on CPSs (WP2 and WP3). The final part of the project is devoted to creating the ADVANCE Training Suite (WP4), to perform a retrospective analysis of the work developed within the project, and define a research roadmap for further research on CPSs (WP1). Activities related to dissemination, communication, and exploitation have been implemented throughout the whole project (WP5), as well as activities for project management (WP6).

Produced public reports:

WP1: Analysis of the state of the art in the V&V of CPSs. Definition of open gaps and promising research directions as a future research roadmap on the topic of V&V of CPSs.

WP2: V&V techniques for collecting evidences on CPSs, covering model-based techniques (such as formal approaches for V&V), experimental techniques (such as robustness testing, fault injection), and hybrid techniques (which tend to combine both approaches).

WP3: Techniques for the management and analysis of V&V-Related Data, focusing on techniques for improving the quality and productivity of the data analysis activities, on approaches for software defects classification, on security-related analysis of V&V data, on exploratory data analysis and qualitative modelling.

WP4: Collection of training materials on the Verification and Validation (V&V) of cyber-physical systems, which consists of presentations and recordings that have been made publicly available with a Creative Common License and can be downloaded from the ADVANCE project website.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Project results covered both verification and validation phases. In the following we summarize the main research activities carried out within the project that have produced a publications in journals, conferences and workshops.

On Verification:

* Model-based Systems Engineering (MBSE) for CubeSat applications. Investigated topic: how to facilitate the analysis of CubeSat systems and constellations through the application of MBSE approaches that derive various simulation artefacts from high-level design models.

* Model-based Performability Analysis of Complex CPS. Investigated topic: how to facilitate the performability analysis of complex CPS using state-based modeling techniques, thought the automated assembly of large performability models based on well-specified libraries of reusable sub-models.

* Preliminary Risk and Mitigation Assessment in Cyber-Physical Systems. Investigated topic: development of an early risk assessment method built around an embedded algorithm for Error Propagation Analysis (EPA), for assessing the system-level impacts of local attacks and unintentional faults in CPS.

* Model-Driven fault injection. Investigated topic: definition of a model-driven approach to craft and inject software faults in source code, where the faults and the criteria to select injection locations are described using structured, machine-readable specifications based on a domain-specific language.

On Validation:

* Studies on constellations of satellites for data communication. Investigated topic: usage of a simulator to dynamically analyze satellites in circular orbits arranged in different orbital planes, to fine-tune system’s parameters and estimate the impact of satellites’ failures on observation times and revisit times.

* CubeSat Payload vulnerability to space radiation. Investigated topic: how to guarantee resilient behavior of CubeSats, which are not designed for the space environment and are sensitive to space radiation, through the development of software implemented fault tolerance mechanisms tailored to the specific code running in each CubeSat.

* Evaluation of Visual Odometry Systems against Camera Lens Failures. Investigated topic: analyze the impact of typical camera lens failures due to atmospheric agents on a monocular feature-based Visual Odometry system and propose strategies to mitigate these issues.

* Model-Driven testing of service orchestrations. Investigated topic: how to improve the interoperability of artifacts in the test case generation process through the application of Model-Driven Engineering principles as meta-modeling and model transformation.


Achieved impact:
i) Enhance the potential and future career perspectives of the staff members. The consortium paid attention to include many early-stage researchers in the secondments, who could tremendously benefit from research visits. Usually early-stage researchers were accompanied by or mentored by experienced researchers. In this way, early-stage researchers gained experience in international collaborations, working in a different environment, and gained information about new application domains and current industrial or academic practices – all of which could enhance their future career prospects.
ii) Develop new and lasting research collaborations. New collaborations have been built based on the implemented secondments, which resulted in new joint PhD tutorship or joint publications. Partners explored further funding and exchange schemes to expand the collaborations started in ADVANCE.

WP organization

ADVANCE results depicted on the Verification & Validation (V&V) process of critical systems