SBIR Phase I: HARBINGER: A Networked Embedded Systems Design Environment

这个小型企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目解决了构建高保证实时、网络化嵌入式系统的问题。该项目将开发一个称为HARBINGER的设计环境，以保持需求和代码之间的一致性的方式，支持嵌入式系统的规范、组合、分析和细化代码。HARBINGER还将支持引导细化，例如，通过在整个过程中生成资源权衡，支持设计知识的捕获和重用，并在可能的范围内生成正确性的正式证明。预计HARBINGER将降低生产新型嵌入式系统的成本，并提高其正确性的保证。一旦投入使用，HARBINGER还将对最初在其环境中构建的系统进行根本性的改进。在HARBINGER中，诸如将应用程序定位于不断变化的主机平台等实际问题将更容易处理。在这个项目中，该公司将评估HARBINGER方法在重要商业应用中的实用性和有效性。这将需要选择一个对高保证软件和系统有强烈要求的初始市场，作为下一阶段研究建议的基础。最初的应用候选人包括汽车和航空车辆控制系统，该公司在这些领域有着广泛的联系。在这两个领域中，将关注遗留代码的实际考虑和重要新协议的影响。

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project addresses the problem of constructing high-assurance real-time, networked embedded systems. The project will develop a design environment, called HARBINGER, supporting the specification, composition, analysis, and refinement-to-code of embedded systems, in a way that preserves consistency between requirements and code. HARBINGER will also supported guided refinement, e.g., by generating resource tradeoffs throughout the process, enable capture and reuse of design knowledge, and yield formal proofs of correctness to the extent possible. It is anticipated that HARBINGER will lower the cost of producing new embedded systems and improve the assurance of their correctness. Once in use, HARBINGER will also make radical improvements in the evolution of systems originally constructed in its environment. Practical problems such as targeting applications to changing host platforms will be handled much more easily within HARBINGER In this project, the firm will assess the practicality and effectiveness of the HARBINGER approach for commercially important applications. This will require selecting an initial market with strong requirements for high assurance software and systems as the basis for a proposal for the next phase of the research. Initial application candidates include automotive and aviation vehicle control systems, areas in which the firm has extensive connections. In both of these areas, attention will be paid to the practical consideration of legacy code and to the impact of important new protocols.