SDL specification and verification of universal personal computing: with Object GEODE

Support of nomadic computing on the Internet requires the design of new protocols handling issues of user mobility. Our efforts target the universal personal computing (UPC) system to provide a continuous personal computing environment for mobile users. We selected SDL as a specification language for this new service, which allowed us to use Verilog’s SDL tool: ObjectGEODE, for design verification. In the paper, we discuss the main principles of UPC, and how the simulator and verifier of ObjectGEODE were used during the stepwise system design. We illustrate the types of errors detected by the verifier, and show that the consistent application of the SDL methodology and the tool has increased our confidence in the correctness of our specification. The specification is the basis of our further work on UPC prototyping.