Low-cost pathways towards formal methods use

1. ABSTRACT In current practice, formal methods are perceived as high-cost activities, and hence their use is recommended primarily for cases warranting the highest possible level of assurance. However, opportunities abound for beneficial applications of formal methods across a broad spectrum of cases, provided low-cost pathways towards their introduction and use can be identified. This premise is illustrated on a fragment of space vehicle requirements. Other researchers have studied fragments similar to this to illustrate various analysis techniques. Here it is shown that judicious choice of representation permits (some) formal analysis to be conducted immediately. Furthermore, this representation is made alluring by automatically generating textual and tabular representations from it. The net result is a low-cost (perhaps even costsavings) approach to manipulating requirements of this nature, with the beneficial side effect of permitting formal analysis of those requirements at no extra cost. 1.1