A Critical Analysis of Model-Based Formal Verification Efforts within the Automotive Industry

There are a number of software-controlled features in today's automotive vehicles to meet the increasing number of requirements for comfort, safety, infotainment and reduced emissions. To meet the growing demands from such features, the software content is not only increasing rapidly, but also becoming increasingly distributed within the Electronic Control Units (ECUs), leading to the possibility of unwanted interactions and consequent loss of reliability. Therefore, the automotive software-based features have to be designed and verified using sophisticated tools and techniques.

Formal methods-based techniques and tools have been used on various industrial designs over the past 6 years by one of the authors in development and applied research projects, collaborating with a number of automotive companies. The challenges faced in large projects are discussed in this context. A large number of industrial users have recounted their own experiences in user conferences and workshops, which will be summarized. The results of a short survey of real users will also be discussed in this context.