“Formal Methods in Systems Integration: Deployment of Formal Techniques in INSPEX”

Abstract: Inspired by the abilities of contemporary autonomous vehicles to navigate with a high degree of effectiveness, the INSPEX Project aims to create a minaturised smart obstacle detection system, which could find use in a wide variety of leading edge smart applications. The primary use case focused on in the project is producing an advanced prototype for a device which can be attached to a visually impaired or blind (VIB) person’s white cane, and which, through the integration of a variety of minaturised sensors, and of the processing of their data via sophisticated algorithms, can offer the VIB user greater precision of information about their environment. The increasing complexity of such systems creates increasing challenges to assure their correct operation, inviting the introduction of formal techniques to aid in maximising system dependability. However, the major challenge to building such systems resides at the hardware end of the development. This impedes the routine application of top-down formal methods approaches. Some ingenuity must be brought to bear, in order that normally mutually hostile formal and mainstream approaches can contribute positively towards system dependability, rather than conflicting unproductively. This aspect is illustrated using two strands of the INSPEX Project.