In: LNCS 1516: Computer Safety, Reliability and Security, pages 319-pp. 17th International Conference, SAFECOMP'98, Heidelberg, Germany, October 1998. Proceedings / Wolfgang Ehrenberger (Ed.) --- Springer Verlag, 1998.
Abstract: This article aims at emphasising the importance of integrating logical and physical aspects in order to validate requirements and high-level design of safety-related embedded systems. After some introductory remarks motivating the inclusion of continuous process properties into early requirements analysis, it offers a brief survey on some of the existing alternatives. For the purpose of exemplification this contribution focuses on Time Petri Nets, which are extendible beyond binary logic to include physics in terms of real-valued time intervals. The analysis of a real-world example illustrates the applicability of this approach to support the proof or disproof of safety properties, allowing to identify weak assumptions at early design stages.