This chapter describes a method for the verification and validation of software systems using coloured Petri nets (CPN) and VRML. The method is defined over three separated roles: the CPN Developer, responsible for CPN issues; the VRML Developer, respon-sible for VRML issues; and the Final User, responrespon-sible for specifying and validating the system.
According to the proposed method, the system is modeled using CPN and VRML based on its requirements. Next, the CPN and VRML events are correlated in order to allow the CPN model simulation to control the VRML model simulation. For that, we propose a software tool that is used to correlate CPN and VRML events.
We describe the method as a set of phases for modeling and verification. The application of each phase is illustrated using a flexible manufacturing-system example. This makes it easier to understand the implementation of our method. As a real case study, we described the validation and verification of an embedded software system using the proposed method and platform.
The main future trend in the context of software verification and validation related to our work is to provide mechanisms for reducing the gap between validation and verification techniques. In this chapter, we propose a method and a tool that reduce such a gap, promoting the integration between VRML and CPN developers, still obtaining software verification and friendly software validation.
However, for some domains, the integration can be improved. For example, a VRML-component library for a specific domain may be created. Thus, when verifying and
validating software for such domain, the integration tool could generate the VRML model based on the name of the component events. This automatic approach would reduce the effort on mapping CPN events to VRML ones.
On the other hand, verification tools could be improved in order to provide friendly mechanisms for visualizing what is being verified. It will be very important to the large-scale use of verification techniques in the context of industrial software engineering.
In this future, we plan to apply our method for validating and verifying software in other domains, focusing on complex interaction-centric ones (e.g., multiagent systems, as in Weiss, 2000, and workflow management systems, as in van der Aalst & van Hee, 2002).
The validation of these systems through VRML may be primordial.
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Endnotes
1 Design/CPN can be downloaded at http://www.daimi.au.dk/designCPN/
2 VRML resources such as editors and browsers are available at http://
www.vrmlsite.com/
3 The official site of Java 3D is available at https://java3d.dev.java.net
4 The official site of X3D is available at http://www.web3d.org