forRobotFunctionalLevels.PDF

Postprint of article published in Journal of Software Engineering for Robotics 2(1), September 2011, 1-19 A Verifiable and Correct-by-Construction Controller for Robot Functional Levels∗ † ‡ ´ ‡ † Saddek Bensalem Lavindra de Silva Felix Ingrand Rongjie Yan Abstract—Autonomous robots are complex systems that re- simulation run and each test evaluates the system only against quire the interaction and cooperation between numerous het- a small subset of the foreseeable set of operating conditions erogeneous software components. In recent times, robots are and inputs. Hence, with complex autonomous and embedded being increasingly used for complex and safety-critical tasks, such as exploring Mars and assisting/replacing humans. Con- systems it is often impractical to use these techniques to cover sequently, robots are becoming critical systems that must meet even a small fraction of the total operating space, not to safety properties, in particular, logical, temporal and real-time mention the high cost of building test harnesses. constraints. To this end, we present an evolution of the LAAS In this paper, we make a significant step toward building en architecture for autonomous systems, in particular its G oM safe and dependable robotic systems. Robotic architectures tool. This evolution relies on the BIP component-based design framework, which has bee