Introduction / mission

Formal System Analysis focuses on theories, techniques and tools for modeling and analyzing the behaviors of software-controlled systems.

Highlighted phrase

Formal analysis is essential for cost-effective, highly reliable software-controlled systems

Organisational profile

The FSA group studies the foundations of software-controlled systems and develops languages and techniques for modelling and analyzing real-world, industrial-scale applications. Expertise in the group includes process algebras for reasoning about concurrent, timed and probabilistic system behavior, SAT- and SMT-solvers, rewriting, and model checking technology. Research focusses on scalability of the technology, which is required for its use in the development of software controlled-systems.  The group offers courses in Logic, Formal Methods, Model Checking, Micro-processor Verification, and Automated Reasoning. 

Much of the group’s research is consolidated in tools. Prominent examples include mCRL2 and MaDL. mCRL2 is a process-algebraic language with an award-winning tool set for modeling and analyzing concurrent systems. MaDL is a language with associated verification techniques for scalable liveness verification of micro-architectures of computer processors. 

Current areas of application include protocols, hardware designs and industrial control systems. Recent examples include the formalization of the commercial industrial modelling and code generation language Dezyne, which relies on mCRL2 for analyzing the system behaviors. Past examples include verification of the control systems of the four large experiments in the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, using model checking and satisfiability solving to improve the control system reliability, and the analysis of the software architecture of the first award-winning Stella Solar Car.

Recent research projects in which FSA is involved include: 

• AVVA: Accelerated Verification and Verification Accelerated (NWO TOP grant)
• MERITS: Model extraction for re-engineering traditional software (NWO Big Software, with Philips Healthcare)
• Formal verification of cache coherent multi-core architectures (NWO TOP grant)
• DEWI: Dependable Embedded Wireless Infrastructure (Artemis project)