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Sven Linker

Publications and source records attributed to Sven Linker.

14 recordsLinked to original sources
arXiv2026

Corten - Foundational Verification of Rust Programs

We present Corten, a foundational verification framework for Rust programs in the Rocq theorem prover, built on the Iris separation logic framework. Corten provides the first semantics of surface-level Rust mechanized in a proof assistant with an attached program logic, directly grounded in the Rust Reference: it deeply embeds the Typed High-level Intermediate Representation (THIR) into Rocq and formalises Rust's dynamic semantics as a weakest-precondition predicate transformer calculus. By operating at THIR rather than on internal compiler representations, Corten proof goals display the THIR AST, which pretty-prints to surface Rust, keeping verification close to the source code and facilitating maintainability as code evolves. Atop this semantics, Corten develops a program logic and a syntax-directed proof automation layer; the program logic includes defunctionalized continuation stacks that keep proof goals first-order and compact. Soundness is established incrementally, construct by construct, against an interaction-trees denotation. A synthetic test suite demonstrates a two-to-four times reduction in proof size compared to raw semantic proofs. We further showcase Corten on a buddy allocator case study, verifying memory safety of the allocation and deallocation functions, laying the groundwork for end-to-end verification in a shared Rocq semantic foundation spanning hardware-software boundaries.

cs.PL↗
arXiv2026

Engineering Reliable Autonomous Systems: Challenges and Solutions

Engineering reliable autonomous systems is an important and growing topic in computer science. As autonomous systems become more prevalent, easy-to-use techniques for building them reliably are increasingly important. This workshop report captures and expands on the discussions at the Lorentz Center Workshop "Engineering Reliable Autonomous Systems" (ERAS), held from 10 to 14 June 2024. The workshop was co-organised by the organisers of the Workshop on Formal Methods for Autonomous Systems (FMAS) and the Workshop on Agents and Robots for reliable Engineered Autonomy (AREA). It brought together members of the FMAS and AREA communities, industry practitioners, and representatives from sectors where autonomous systems pose distinctive engineering challenges. The workshop focused on three main research topics: techniques for verification and validation of autonomous systems; engineering real-world autonomous systems; and software architectures for safe autonomous systems. Its main outcome is a catalogue of challenges in these areas and, most importantly, a pathway to solutions. Some challenges can already be tackled by techniques that are well known in academia but have not yet become regularly used in practice. Other challenges remain unresolved and require further research. This roadmap is intended to support future research and industrial collaboration.

cs.RO↗
arXiv2021

MLFC: From 10 to 50 Planners in the Multi-Agent Programming Contest

In this paper, we describe the strategies used by our team, MLFC, that led us to achieve the 2nd place in the 15th edition of the Multi-Agent Programming Contest. The scenario used in the contest is an extension of the previous edition (14th) "Agents Assemble" wherein two teams of agents move around a 2D grid and compete to assemble complex block structures. We discuss the languages and tools used during the development of our team. Then, we summarise the main strategies that were carried over from our previous participation in the 14th edition and list the limitations (if any) of using these strategies in the latest contest edition. We also developed new strategies that were made specifically for the extended scenario: cartography (determining the size of the map); formal verification of the map merging protocol (to provide assurances that it works when increasing the number of agents); plan cache (efficiently scaling the number of planners); task achievement (forming groups of agents to achieve tasks); and bullies (agents that focus on stopping agents from the opposing team). Finally, we give a brief overview of our performance in the contest and discuss what we believe were our shortcomings.

cs.MA↗
arXiv2020

Analysing Spatial Properties on Neighbourhood Spaces

We present a bisimulation relation for neighbourhood spaces, a generalisation of topological spaces. We show that this notion, path preserving bisimulation, preserves formulas of the spatial logic SLCS. We then use this preservation result to show that SLCS cannot express standard topological properties such as separation and connectedness. Furthermore, we compare the bisimulation relation with standard modal bisimulation and modal bisimulation with converse on graphs and prove it coincides with the latter.

cs.LO↗
arXiv2020

Intuitionistic Euler-Venn Diagrams (extended)

We present an intuitionistic interpretation of Euler-Venn diagrams with respect to Heyting algebras. In contrast to classical Euler-Venn diagrams, we treat shaded and missing zones differently, to have diagrammatic representations of conjunction, disjunction and intuitionistic implication. We present a cut-free sequent calculus for this language, and prove it to be sound and complete. Furthermore, we show that the rules of cut, weakening and contraction are admissible.

cs.LO↗
arXiv2018

Multi-Scale Verification of Distributed Synchronisation

Algorithms for the synchronisation of clocks across networks are both common and important within distributed systems. We here address not only the formal modelling of these algorithms, but also the formal verification of their behaviour. Of particular importance is the strong link between the very different levels of abstraction at which the algorithms may be verified. Our contribution is primarily the formalisation of this connection between individual models and population-based models, and the subsequent verification that is then possible. While the technique is applicable across a range of synchronisation algorithms, we particularly focus on the synchronisation of (biologically-inspired) pulse-coupled oscillators, a widely used approach in practical distributed systems. For this application domain, different levels of abstraction are crucial: models based on the behaviour of an individual process are able to capture the details of distinguished nodes in possibly heterogenous networks, where each node may exhibit different behaviour. On the other hand, collective models assume homogeneous sets of processes, and allow the behaviour of the network to be analysed at the global level. System-wide parameters may be easily adjusted, for example environmental factors inhibiting the reliability of the shared communication medium. This work provides a formal bridge across the abstraction gap separating the individual models and the population-based models for this important class of synchronisation algorithms.

cs.LO↗
arXiv2018

Modular Verification of Vehicle Platooning with Respect to Decisions, Space and Time

The spread of autonomous systems into safety-critical areas has increased the demand for their formal verification, not only due to stronger certification requirements but also to public uncertainty over these new technologies. However, the complex nature of such systems, for example, the intricate combination of discrete and continuous aspects, ensures that whole system verification is often infeasible. This motivates the need for novel analysis approaches that modularise the problem, allowing us to restrict our analysis to one particular aspect of the system while abstracting away from others. For instance, while verifying the real-time properties of an autonomous system we might hide the details of the internal decision-making components. In this paper we describe verification of a range of properties across distinct dimesnions on a practical hybrid agent architecture. This allows us to verify the autonomous decision-making, real-time aspects, and spatial aspects of an autonomous vehicle platooning system. This modular approach also illustrates how both algorithmic and deductive verification techniques can be applied for the analysis of different system subcomponents.

cs.AI↗
arXiv2018

Proceedings 2nd International Workshop on Safe Control of Autonomous Vehicles

These are the proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Safe Control of Autonomous Vehicles, which took place on the 10th of April 2018 in Porto, Portugal as an affiliated workshop of CSPWeek. The task of this workshop is to identify open research problems, discuss recent achievements, bring together researchers in, e.g., control theory, adaptive systems, machine self-organization and autonomy, mobile intelligent robotics, transportation, traffic control, machine learning, software verification, and dependability and security engineering.

eess.SY↗
arXiv2018

Formalising Sensor Topologies for Target Counting

We present a formal model developed to reason about topologies created by sensor ranges. This model is used to formalise the topological aspects of an existing counting algorithm to estimate the number of targets in the area covered by the sensors. To that end, we present a first-order logic tailored to specify relations between parts of the space with respect to sensor coverage. The logic serves as a specification language for Hoare-style proofs of correctness of the topological computations of the algorithm, which uncovers ambiguities in their results. Subsequently, we extend the formal model as a step towards improving the estimation of the algorithm. Finally, we sketch how the model can be extended to take mobile sensors and temporal aspects into account.

cs.LO↗
arXiv2017

The Power of Synchronisation: Formal Analysis of Power Consumption in Networks of Pulse-Coupled Oscillators

We assess the power consumption of network synchronisation protocols, particularly the energy required to synchronise all nodes across a network. We use the widely adopted approach of bio-inspired, pulse-coupled oscillators to achieve network-wide synchronisation and provide an extended formal model of just such a protocol, enhanced with structures for recording energy usage. Exhaustive analysis is then carried out through formal verification, utilising the PRISM model checker to calculate the resources consumed on each possible system execution. This allows us to assess a range of parameter instantiations and to explore trade-offs between power consumption and time to synchronise. This provides a principled basis for the formal analysis of a much broader range of large-scale network protocols.

cs.DC↗
arXiv2017

Proceedings First Workshop on Formal Verification of Autonomous Vehicles

These are the proceedings of the workshop on Formal Verification of Autonomous Vehicles, held on September 19th, 2017 in Turin, Italy, as an affiliated workshop of the International Conference on integrated Formal Methods (iFM 2017). The workshop aim is to bring together researchers from the formal verification community that are developing formal methods for autonomous vehicles as well as researchers working, e.g., in the area of control theory or robotics, interested in applying verification techniques for designing and developing of autonomous vehicles.

eess.SY↗
arXiv2017

Tactical Diagrammatic Reasoning

Although automated reasoning with diagrams has been possible for some years, tools for diagrammatic reasoning are generally much less sophisticated than their sentential cousins. The tasks of exploring levels of automation and abstraction in the construction of proofs and of providing explanations of solutions expressed in the proofs remain to be addressed. In this paper we take an interactive proof assistant for Euler diagrams, Speedith, and add tactics to its reasoning engine, providing a level of automation in the construction of proofs. By adding tactics to Speedith's repertoire of inferences, we ease the interaction between the user and the system and capture a higher level explanation of the essence of the proof. We analysed the design options for tactics by using metrics which relate to human readability, such as the number of inferences and the amount of clutter present in diagrams. Thus, in contrast to the normal case with sentential tactics, our tactics are designed to not only prove the theorem, but also to support explanation.

cs.LO↗
arXiv2015

Proof Theory of a Multi-Lane Spatial Logic

We extend the Multi-lane Spatial Logic MLSL, introduced in previous work for proving the safety (collision freedom) of traffic maneuvers on a multi-lane highway, by length measurement and dynamic modalities. We investigate the proof theory of this extension, called EMLSL. To this end, we prove the undecidability of EMLSL but nevertheless present a sound proof system which allows for reasoning about the safety of traffic situations. We illustrate the latter by giving a formal proof for the reservation lemma we could only prove informally before. Furthermore we prove a basic theorem showing that the length measurement is independent from the number of lanes on the highway.

cs.LO↗