Kirsten Winter

Model Checking Abstract State Machines Kirsten Winter

The benefits of formal methods have been discussed many times in the literature. Production costs can be decreased greatly if errors can be detected in an early phase of design. Accidents, involving majordamage and even loss of lives, can be avoided if systems are working correctly. Nevertheless, the use of formal methods is limited in practice since the trade-off between productivity and reliability isstill too large. This work aims at improving the applicability of the formal approach. To be of practical relevance in the future formal system development must provide support for modelling and analysis. Currently, however, there is a discrepancy between tools that are easy to use due toautomation and languages that nicely support the modelling task. It is necessary to bridge this gap. This work contributes with a solution for a particular formal language and a particular kind of tool support for verification. The title ''Model Checking Abstract State Machines summarises the results."