CentraleSupélec collaboration: Students dive into railway projects

This past week, thirty-six CentraleSupélec students in Paris actively participated in a week-long project, utilizing Prover iLock and Prover Studio. Our objective was to engage them in the details of working on a railway project employing formal methods. Seven groups worked in parallel to develop seven interlockings for an entire rail line.

We provided them with an understanding of what an interlocking is, along with initial knowledge about railway systems. Equipped with this basic understanding, we tasked them with debugging an interlocking system using fundamental signaling principles. Following this initial step, the students were empowered to introduce new safety requirements and test cases. In the end, they could incorporate a new manual release feature into their interlocking system, covering aspects such as design, safety requirements, and testing.

We extend our greatest appreciation to the dedicated students of CentraleSupélec for their commitment and enthusiasm throughout the past week. All of them really impressed us with how quickly you got the hang of our tools, languages, and the whole railway field. Our thanks also go to their teachers, in particular Idir Ait Sadoune, who have renewed their confidence in us again for this year.

We are hoping to have the opportunity to see these talented students again in the railway industry or in the field of formal methods. We believe that opportunities to introduce these two fields to new students are essential. We are convinced that this new generation of talents can contribute to the development of these two exciting fields for engineering a safer world.