IF-2.0: A Validation Environment for Component-Based Real-Time Systems

It is widely recognised that the automated validation of complex systems can hardly be achieved without tool integration. The development of the IF-1.0 toolbox [3] has been initiated several years ago, in order to provide an open validation platform for timed asynchronous systems (such as telecommunication protocols or distributed applications, in general). The toolbox has been built upon an intermediate representation language based on extended timed automata. In particular, this representation allowed us to study the semantics of real-time primitives for asynchronous systems. Currently, the toolbox contains dedicated tools on the intermediate language (such as compilers, static analysers and model-checkers) as well as front-ends to various specification languages and validation tools (academic and commercial ones). Among the dedicated tools, we focused on static analysis (such as slicing and abstraction) which are mandatory for an automated validation of complex systems. Finally, the toolbox was successfully used on several case studies, the most relevant ones being presented in [4].