NASA Formal Methods Workshop, 1990

This report documents a workshop in Formal Methods held at the NASA Langley Research Center on August 20-23, 1990. The workshop brought together researchers involved in the NASA formal methods research effort for detailed technical interchange and provided a mechanism for interaction with representatives from the FAA and the aerospace industry. The workshop also included speakers from industry to debrief the formal methods researchers on current state of practice in flight critical system design, verification, and certification.

The goals of the workshop were: (1) Define and characterize the verification problem for ultra-reliable life-critical flight control systems and the current state of the practice in industry today, (2) Determine the proper role of formal methods in addressing these problems, and (3) Assess the state of the art and recent progress toward applying formal methods to this area.

Attendees included NASA personnel, researchers from the four supporting contract organizations, RSRE personnel, invited speakers, and representatives from other government research organizations with interests in formal methods.