2nd Workshop on Formal Verification of Physical Systems (FVPS 2021)

Theme

One of the main issues behind many failing systems is the ad-hoc verification approach that involves a variety of formalism and techniques for the modeling and analysis of various components of the present-age (cyber)-physical systems. For example, control and communication protocols are usually modeled using automata theory, and thus analyzed using model checking techniques, while the modeling of physical aspects often requires multivariate calculus foundations, which are in turn analyzed using paper-and-pencil based analytical proofs, simulation or theorem proving. The fundamental differences between these modeling and analysis techniques limit us to analyze the whole system as one unit and thus miss many corner cases, which arise due to the operation of all the sub-components of the system together. One of the major concerns is that, despite the above-mentioned evident limitation in the analysis methods, many safety-critical systems, such as aerospace, smart-transportation, smart-grid and e-healthcare, are increasingly involving physical elements. Moreover, we are moving towards integrating more complex physical elements in our engineering systems. For example, we are moving towards Quantum Computers to meet the high-performance needs. Similarly, phonic components are increasingly being advocated and used in aerospace applications due to their lightweight and temperature independency compared to traditional electronics-based components. Finally, the impact of physical components is relevant to both safety and security of the overall system. For example, malfunction in sensor measurement may lead to safety issues whereas sophisticated physics-based side-channel (e.g., power and acoustic measurements) attacks lead to the security violation of the underlying system.

The focus of the workshop will be on formal verification techniques for the modeling, analysis and verification of safety and security critical physical systems. We encourage submissions on interdisciplinary approaches that bring together formal methods and techniques from other knowledge areas such as quantum computing, control theory, biology, optimization theory and artificial intelligence.

Topics of Interest

General Topics
• Formalization of mathematics and physics theories
• Interactive and automated theorem proving for physical systems
• Model Checking algorithms and tools for physical systems
• Formalization of security and safety of physical systems
• Runtime verification of safety and security properties
• Combination of formal, semiformal and infromal approaches
• Formal verification of numerical algorithms
• Refinement based verification of physical systems
• Formalization of probability, reliability and statistical metrics
• Hybrid systems
• Benchmarks for physical systems
• Formal requirement specification and validation

Application Domain
• Aerospace and avionics systems
• Automotive cyber physical systems
• Robotics
• Smartgrids
• Smart transportation
• Human factor modeling and analysis
• Biological and healthcare systems

Submission

• Regular papers describing developed work with theoretical results (upto 15 pages)
• Short papers on experience reports, tools or work in progress with preliminary results (upto 6 pages)

Important Dates

• Full Paper Submission: June 25, 2021
• Notification: July 18, 2021
• Workshop: July 26-31, 2021
• Camera Ready: August 13, 2021

Program Chairs

• Sofiene Tahar , Concordia University, Montreal, QC, Canada
• Osman Hasan, National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), Pakistan
• Adnan Rashid, National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), Pakistan

Program Committee

• Peter Csaba Ölveczky, University of Oslo, Norway
• Atif Mashkoor, Institute for Software Systems Engineering, Johannes Kepler University, Linz, Austria
• Waqar Ahmad, BlackBerry Limited, Canada
• Pedro Ribeiro, University of York, UK