INESC TEC’s High-Assurance Software Laboratory (HASLab) coordinates the SpecRep (Constraint-based Specification Repair) project – which focuses on promoting the adequate formal specification of software components, crucial to the development of high-assurance software.
This type of software is increasingly used in critical systems, i.e., systems where failures can generate financial, personal, and physical issues. In this sense, software validation and verification are essential and depend on the correct specification of the expected behaviour, but its writing requires advanced formal knowledge.
“The project will lead to the development of techniques and the implementation of tools that detect failures automatically and suggest corrections during the formal specification of software components”, explained Nuno Macedo, researcher at HASLab and head of the project.
The technologies developed within the scope of the project, unique for focusing on repairing specifications rather than programs, will become available for the community and include intuitive and comprehensive suggestions for users.
“The techniques proposed in SpecRep will support non-specialised programmers in this process, promoting the development of safe software”, added Nuno Macedo. Moreover, they can also support future experts in terms of high-assurance techniques during the initial learning stages.
This project was recently approved by the Foundation for Science and Technology, with a funding of €50K, and will start this January.
The INESC TEC researcher mentioned in this news piece is associated with UP-FEUP.
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