Tools

The MOVES Group has developed or participated in the development of the following tools:

CoDeMoC is a model checker for Continuous-time markov chain against linear time specification describe as Deterministic timed automaton. This tool compute the probability of timed path accepted by the automaton in the Markov Chain.

Smyle is a tool for synthesizing models by learning from example scenarios that are given as message sequence charts.

MSCan is a tool for analyzing (compositional) Message Sequence Graphs with regard to implementability (we usually think of implementability as a transformation of a given MSG to the automata model of Communicating Finite-State Machines also known as Message Passing Automata) and consistency. For this purpose MSCan allows for checking properties like for example local-choice, regularity or global cooperativity.

MoTor is aimed at providing means to analyse and evaluate MoDeST specifications. MoDeST is a specification language we recently developed. It provides a wide spectrum of modeling concepts, possesses rigid, process-algebra style semantics, and yet provides modern and flexible specification constructs.

MRMC is a model checker for discrete-time and continuous-time Markov reward models. It supports reward extensions of PCTL and CSL (PRCTL and CSRL), and allows for the automated verification of properties concerning long-run and instantaneous rewards as well as cumulative rewards. In particular, it supports to check the reachability of a set of goal states (by only visiting legal states before) under a time and an accumulated reward constraint.

Besides model checking, it supports bisimulation minimization of

all models mentioned above.

ETMCC is a prototype implementation of a model checker for continuous-time Markov chains. ETMCC supports verification techniques to check CSL and aCSL (action based CSL) properties.

For details on ETMCC consider reading HermansKMS_IJSTTT03.

The TorX tool is a prototype testing tool for conformance testing of reactive software. The tool requires a real implementation and a (formal) specification of that implementation. The specification describes the system behaviour that the real implementation is allowed to perform. The TorX tool is the arbiter that checks the correct behaviour of a real implementation during its execution based on the formal specification. It is also possible to use the simulation of a (formal) specification as ``implementation''.

BSc/MSc/Diploma Topics
Teaching WS 2012/13
Hybrid Systems Group

We are looking for a HiWi for the Compiler Construction course. If you are interested, please contact Thomas Noll.

Joost-Pieter Katoen has been appointed as a member of the renowned Academia Europaea (Academy of Europe), a European, non-governmental association acting as an Academy whose members are scientists and scholars who collectively aim to promote learning, education and research.

Vacancies for postdoctoral researchers in "Automated Analysis of Probabilistic Programs". Application deadline: August 15, 2013.

Joost-Pieter Katoen has been awarded a Distinguished Professorship from the RWTH Aachen University.

The Hybrid Systems: Computation and Control (HSCC'13) conference in Philadelphia has been very successful: Hongfei Fu received the best student paper award for his paper "Approximating acceptance probabilities of CTMC-paths on multi-clock deterministic timed automata". Besides, the paper by Ilya Tkachev, Alexandru Mereacre, Alessandro Abate and Joost-Pieter Katoen was ranked second in the overall best paper award selection.

Joost-Pieter Katoen has been elected as Steering Committee Chair of ETAPS (www.etaps.org), the largest conference on theory and practice of software in Europe. He is the first non-UK ETAPS SC chair since the conference was initiated in 1998. More information here.

The Alumni-Magazine of RWTH Aachen University contains an interview with our former PhD student and postdoctoral researcher, Dr. Tingting Han.

HiWi's wanted to work in a new European Space Agency project for enhancing state-of-the-art design and analysis tools (COMPASS) for the next generation European rockets. Need programming and model checking affinity. See here for details and contact.

We offer openings for several PhD candidates in the area of
"Model-Based Design and Analysis for Dependable Software Systems". Deadline for application: September 14, 2012. For further information click here.

The Theory of Hybrid Systems Group offers two jobs as student assistants within the CEBug project. For more information, look here.

Dino Distefano received the prestigious Roger Needham Award for his work on software verification. This award is for a distinguished research contribution in computer science by a UK based researcher who has completed up to 10 years of post-doctoral research. Dr. Distefano was the first PhD student supervised by Joost-Pieter Katoen.

Marijn Jongerden received the German MMB (Messung, Modellierung und Bewertung von Rechensystemen) Award 2012 of the GI/ITG-Committee for Measurement, Modelling and Evaluation of Computing Systems for his PhD-thesis on "Model-based energy analysis of battery powered systems". His work was supervised by Boudewijn Haverkort (Twente) and Joost-Pieter Katoen.

Our paper "Formal Correctness, Safety, Dependability and Performance Analysis of a Satellite" has been accepted to ICSE 2012 in the track SE in Practice (18% acceptance rate). The paper treats a new satellite from the European Space Agency that was modeled and analyzed with modern tools during the actual satellite design.

Joost-Pieter Katoen will act as DJ in the "Nacht der Professoren" in the Apollo bar and cinema.