Publication
We present an approach for using formal methods in embedded systems and its evaluation on a case study. In our approach, the developers describe the system in a restricted subset of the high-level programming language Scala. We then use 1) a verification system to formally prove properties of such Scala program, and 2) a source-to-source translator to map Scala to C code. We have adapted the Stainless verification system to support constructs for describing embedded software (more machine integer types and early returns) and to support verification patterns needed for embedded systems code (array swap operation, pre-allocated and initialized memory, constant-length arrays). The implemented C code translator generates code that can be compiled with compilers such as GCC and integrated into larger C applications. We evaluate our approach on a case study of a file system of an instrument on the Solar Orbiter satellite. We have ported around a thousand lines of C code to Scala. We wrote specification and proof hints to make the code verify. Stainless verified the absence of run-time errors, as well as function preconditions, postconditions, and data structure invariants. The generated C code was integrated into the existing code base and exhibits very similar code size, memory use, and performance. In this process we identified multiple bugs in the well-tested code base, which were fixed in-orbit.