A real-time specification environment based on Z and graphical object-oriented modeling techniques

The critical and complex nature of most real-time systems necessitates the use of rigorous techniques in their development. Formal specification techniques (FSTs) offer a foundation for rigorous design of complex systems. Though developers are aware of the benefits FSTs can bring to the software development effort, they often cite the difficulty of applying the techniques to their problems as a reason for not using them. We describe a Z-based specification environment that we are developing. The goal of the environment is to facilitate the application of FSTs to industrial-strength real-time system development. The environment is based on an integrated Z specification technique and a graphical object-oriented design technique.