Skip to main content

An action system approach to the steam boiler problem

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Formal Methods for Industrial Applications

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 1165))

Abstract

This paper presents an approach to the specification of control programs based on action systems and refinement. The system to be specified and its physical environment are first modelled as one initial action system. This allows us to abstract away from the communication mechanism between the two entities. It also allows us to state and use clearly the assumptions that we make about how the environment behaves. In subsequent steps the specifications of control program and the environment are further elaborated by refinement and are separated. We use the refinement calculus to structure and reason about the specification. The operators in this calculus allow us to achieve a high degree of modularity in the development.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. M. Abadi and L. Lamport. The existence of refinement mappings. In Proc. of the 3rd Annual IEEE Symp. on Logic In Computer Science, Edinburgh, pp. 165–175, 1988.

    Google Scholar 

  2. R. J. R. Back. On the Correctness of Refinement Steps in Program Development. PhD thesis, Department of Computer Science, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland, 1978. Report A-1978-4.

    Google Scholar 

  3. R. J. R. Back. Refinement calculus, part II: Parallel and reactive programs. In J. W. de Bakker, W.-P. de Roever, and G. Rozenberg, editors, Stepwise Refinement of Distributed Systems: Models, Formalisms, Correctness. Proceedings. 1989, volume 430 of Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Springer-Verlag, 1990.

    Google Scholar 

  4. R. J. R. Back and R. Kurki-Suonio. Decentralization of process nets with centralized control. In Proc. of the 2nd ACM SIGACT-SIGOPS Symp. on Principles of Distributed Computing, pages 131–142, 1983.

    Google Scholar 

  5. R. J. R. Back, A. J. Martin, and K. Sere. Specifying the Caltech asynchronous microprocessor. Science of Computer Programming, North-Holland. Accepted for publication.

    Google Scholar 

  6. R.J.R. Back and K. Sere. Stepwise refinement of action systems. Structured Programming, 12:17–30, 1991.

    Google Scholar 

  7. R. J. R. Back and K. Sere. From modular systems to action systems. Proc. of Formal Methods Europe'94, Spain, October 1994. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Springer-Verlag, 1994.

    Google Scholar 

  8. R. J. R. Back and J. von Wright. Refinement calculus, part I: Sequential nondeterministic programs. In J. W. de Bakker, W.-P. de Roever, and G. Rozenberg, editors, Stepwise Refinement of Distributed Systems: Models, Formalisms, Correctness. Proceedings. 1989, volume 430 of Lecture Notes in Computer Science, pages 42–66. Springer-Verlag, 1990.

    Google Scholar 

  9. R. J. R. Back and J. von Wright. Trace Refinement of Action Systems In B. Jonsson, J. Parrow, editors, CONCUR '94: Concurrency Theory. Proceedings. 1994, volume 836 of Lecture Notes in Computer Science, pages 367–384. Springer-Verlag, 1994.

    Google Scholar 

  10. P. Bernard A Z specification of the boiler. Presented at seminar on Methods for Semantics and Specification, Schloss Dagstuhl, June 1995.

    Google Scholar 

  11. K. Chandy and J. Misra. Parallel Program Design: A Foundation. Addison-Wesley, 1988.

    Google Scholar 

  12. E. W. Dijkstra. A Discipline of Programming. Prentice-Hall International, 1976.

    Google Scholar 

  13. C. C. Morgan. The specification statement. ACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems, 10(3):403–419, July 1988.

    Google Scholar 

  14. J. M. Morris. A theoretical basis for stepwise refinement and the programming calculus. Science of Computer Programming, 9:287–306, 1987.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Editor information

Jean-Raymond Abrial Egon Börger Hans Langmaack

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 1996 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Butler, M., Sekerinski, E., Sere, K. (1996). An action system approach to the steam boiler problem. In: Abrial, JR., Börger, E., Langmaack, H. (eds) Formal Methods for Industrial Applications. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 1165. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0027234

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0027234

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-61929-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-49566-6

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

Publish with us

Policies and ethics