If you have read the first two parts of this series (Read Part 1 here and Part 2 here), then you know that verifying an interlocking that satisfies safety requirements is not an easy task to accomplish. Due to the huge size of the state space of the interlocking, neither manual methods nor testing will [...]
Hopefully you have read part 1 on this blog, where I tried to convince you that traditional methods will not get you very far when verifying safety requirements for railway interlockings. This time my task is to convince you that formal verification will get you far. In fact, all the way. So what is formal [...]
The subject I am going to write about this time is not an easy one. I will try to explain why formal verification is good. In particular, why it is a good practice to use formal verification when verifying safety requirements on railway systems. The Verification Problem In order to make a convincing argument, I [...]
We've all been there, waiting for the theorem prover to answer. Getting up for a cup of coffee, bugging a colleague... still no answer. This can be standard behaviour when doing formal verification. The requirements are difficult to prove, the system manages to escape into some dark corner not easily approached by the theorem prover. [...]
In my last post I wrote about how to write a decent specification on a quite general level. This time, I like to return to the topic, trying to be a bit more specific and tell you something about how we at Prover like to do things. In the Prover Trident Process, the specification of [...]
Anyone who has given it a go knows that writing specifications is hard work. In fact, at times it seems almost impossible. Which probably is the reason why the practice of using specifications is shunned and dodged whenever possible. Which is bad. However, if one finds oneself working in the field of railway interlockings, they [...]
Prover recently started its first project in China, so in the beginning of December Prover did a tour to China, starting in Shanghai, in order to further explore the Chinese interlocking market. The railway market in China represents a huge opportunity, (as it plans to massively expand the railway network), and at the same time [...]
