A Thread Modularity Approach for Verification Concurrent Software Based on Abstract Interpretation

Ensuring the reliability of concurrency software systems is difficult due to the interaction between threads. This article discusses the requirements for formal verification of concurrent embedded software and proposes a constraint-based flow-sensitive static analysis for concurrent avionics software by iteratively composing thread-modular abstract interpreters. These constraint are based on data-flow graphs and used to rule out patterns of thread interference that can not occur in a real program execution. Our new method has the advantage of being more accurate than existing, flow-insensitive, static avionics analyzers while remaining scalable and providing the expected soundness and termination guarantees. We implemented our method and evaluated it on an industrial setting, hinting at the maturity of our approach.