Software Specification Refinement and Verification Method with I-Mathic Studio

A software design usually manifests a composition of software specifications. It consists of hierarchies of black box and white box specifications which are subject to refinement verification. Refinement verification is a model-checking process that proves the correctness of software specifications using formal methods. Although this is a powerful tool for developing reliable and robust software, the applied mathematics causes a serious gap between academics and software engineers. I-Mathic comprehends a software specification refinement and verification method and a supporting toolset, which aims at eliminating the gap through hiding the applied mathematics by practical modelling concepts. The model-checker FDR is used for refinement verification and detecting deadlocks and livelocks in software specifications. We have improved the method by incorporating CSP programming concepts into the specification language. These concepts make the method suitable for a broader class of safety-critical concurrent systems. The improved I-Mathic is illustrated in this paper.