Between Academics and Practice: Model-based Development of Generic Safety-Critical Systems

Abstract

Academically, the utilization of models promises a quite precise and formalized description of system behavior already in early design stages. Practically, there are gaps between the necessary and provided capabilities of formalism, tools, and processes. Based on experiences in modeling a safety critical railway Radio Block Center, this paper presents the modeling method and experiences from the development of the model. It discusses the questions of how to validate the model, how to derive verification and testing schemes, and how to verify the conformance of implementations to the model. Gaps between academic needs and practical reality are discussed. Hence, this work aims to focus the further development of model-based approaches in the safety-critical embedded domain.