Repository logo
 

Automated formal synthesis of provably safe digital controllers for continuous plants.

Published version
Peer-reviewed

Change log

Abstract

We present a sound and automated approach to synthesizing safe, digital controllers for physical plants represented as time-invariant models. Models are linear differential equations with inputs, evolving over a continuous state space. The synthesis precisely accounts for the effects of finite-precision arithmetic introduced by the controller. The approach uses counterexample-guided inductive synthesis: an inductive generalization phase produces a controller that is known to stabilize the model but that may not be safe for all initial conditions of the model. Safety is then verified via bounded model checking: if the verification step fails, a counterexample is provided to the inductive generalization, and the process further iterates until a safe controller is obtained. We demonstrate the practical value of this approach by automatically synthesizing safe controllers for physical plant models from the digital control literature.

Description

Keywords

4613 Theory Of Computation, 46 Information and Computing Sciences

Journal Title

Acta Inform

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

0001-5903
1432-0525

Volume Title

57

Publisher

Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Sponsorship
Royal Society (UF160079)