Automated formal verification for flexible manufacturing systems

We present an effective approach to perform formal verification of properties of interest of production systems whose behavior is modeled through Stateflow diagrams. The approach hinges on a semantics of Stateflow diagrams given in terms of formulae of a metric temporal logic. The semantics has been implemented in a fully automated tool through which users can define a wide range of properties of interest and then check if they hold for the system. We illustrate the approach and the use of the tool through a realistic case study. The verification technique allowed us to uncover a previously undetected error in the design of the system.