CPS: Medium: Safety-Oriented Hybrid Verification for Medical Robotics

本研究的目的是开发设计、实施和验证医疗机器人的方法和工具。该方法是捕获具有网络、物理和生物组件的系统的计算工作流，以验证该工作流并从工作流模型合成系统。本研究的重点应用是mri引导下的高频超声肿瘤消融。mri引导下的超声肿瘤消融所带来的挑战超出了当前验证技术的范围。医学充满了高度非线性的生物系统，这使它们处于数学上严格的正确性检查和验证的前沿。例如，在本研究中，保证癌症患者接受治疗的安全性需要对Pennes生物热方程进行验证，这是一个包含数十个环境因素的非线性微分方程。这项研究使用抽象层来有效、精确和安全地近似系统中每个组件的行为，从而解决了这种复杂性。为了确保控制器的忠实实现，本研究将探讨以正确的构造方式直接从验证的模型合成控制代码。该项目将有助于开发最合适的正式方法系列，以处理医疗机器人领域的安全性和正确性挑战。它通过提出弥合网络和物理元素之间差距的正式技术，直接解决了CPS的方法和工具议程。它将通过新的研讨会、讲习班和课程，培训跨学科领域的人力。最后但并非最不重要的是，该项目将对社会福祉产生直接的人道主义影响。

The objective of this research is to develop methods and tools for designing, implementing and verifying medical robotics. The approach is to capture the computational work-flow of systems with cyber, physical and biological components, to verify that work-flow and to synthesize systems from the work-flow model. The focusing application of this research is MRI-guided, high-frequency ultrasonic tumor ablation. MRI-guided ultrasonic tumor ablation poses challenges beyond the scope of current verification techniques. Medicine is filled with highly non-linear biological systems, which puts them at the frontier of mathematically rigorous correctness checking and verification. For instance, in this research, guaranteeing the safety of a cancer patient undergoing treatment will require verifying against Pennes bioheat equation, a non-linear differential equation with dozens of environmental factors. This research tackles such complexity using tiers of abstractions to efficiently, precisely and safely approximate the behavior of each component of a system. To ensure a faithful implementation of controllers, this research will investigate synthesizing the control code directly from the verified model in a correct by construction manner. The project will help develop the most appropriate family of formal methods for handling the safety and correctness challenges in the area of medical robotics. It directly addresses the CPS agenda of methods and tools by proposing formal techniques that bridge the gap between the cyber and physical elements. It will train manpower in cross-disciplinary areas through new seminars, workshops and courses. And, last but not least, the project will make a direct humanitarian impact on the well-being of society.