CAREER: Software Reliability Assessment for High Assurance Systems

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Ensuring that high assurance systems meet their reliability requirements prior to deployment is essential. The research focuses on combining the strengths of formal verification methods and program testing. The cornerstone of this unified, quantitative software reliability assessment framework is the use of Bayesian inference. Subjective probabilities of software failures are obtained through formal or informal verification. Statistical testing can either corroborate that the required reliability level is met, or it indicates that the subjectively established failure probabilities are not realistic, prompting the need for rework and improvement. Several combinations of verification techniques and statistical testing are based on program structure. Research objectives include the identification of program designs, which make software reliability assessment feasible, and demonstration of their suitability for high assurance applications. Educational activities accompanying the research theme include research experience for undergraduate and graduate students, and curriculum development. The goal of educational activities is to expose students to the development and assurance of complex systems through their participation in experiments and case studies. Participating students form multidisciplinary teams including computer science, computer engineering and electrical engineering majors.