Using Automated Theorem Provers to Certify Auto-Generated
Aerospace Software
In Proc. IJCAR 2004
Abstract
We describe a system for the automated certification of safety
properties of NASA software. The system uses Hoare-style program
verification technology to generate proof obligations which are then
processed by an automated first-order theorem prover (ATP). For full
automation, however, the obligations must be aggressively preprocessed
and simplified. We describe the unique requirements this places on
the ATP and demonstrate how the individual simplification stages,
which are implemented by rewriting, influence the ability of the ATP
to solve the proof tasks. Experiments on more than 25,000 tasks were
carried out using Vampire, Spass, and e-setheo.