Abstract
This article describes the use of formal verification in the development of a protocol for embedded applications. The protocol is intended for systems where it is crucial that the maximum transmission time of a message between system components does not exceed a known limit, but the average performance is less critical. The protocol is an add-on to the Ethernet. One of its main features is that it prevents collisions in the Ethernet cable. During the development of the protocol, a verification method based on abstraction, reduction and visualisation of behaviour was used to obtain feedback from the behaviour of the protocol. The development proceeded initially rather slowly. However, after the verification method was properly learnt and ways to overcome some problems in the tools supporting it were invented, the speed of the development increased significantly. Although the final version of the protocol is rather different from the previous ones, it took less than a week to design and verify it. During that week, three serious design errors were detected and fixed. It is unlikely that these errors would have been found so quickly (or at all) without the support of the verification method and tools.
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Karsisto, K., Valmari, A. (1996). Verification-driven development of a collision-avoidance protocol for the Ethernet. In: Jonsson, B., Parrow, J. (eds) Formal Techniques in Real-Time and Fault-Tolerant Systems. FTRTFT 1996. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 1135. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-61648-9_43
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-61648-9_43
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