PRIDE: an integrated software development environment for dependable systems

This paper presents the PRIDE research project, developed by Intecs and co-funded by the Italian Space Agency. The project aims at providing an integrated software development environment for dependable systems based on UML, which integrates design activities with selected methods for formal verification and validation (V&V) and quantitative dependability attributes assessment, supported by appropriate tools. The PRIDE environment is built as an extension of the already existing environment for the modeling of Hard Real Time systems, HRT-UML, based on the Unified Modeling Language (UML) notation. The outcome is an advanced and integrated methodological solution for the design of complex embedded real-time systems and for their evaluation and verification, according to rigorous techniques based on formal theories, such as formal verification, model based dependability evaluation and schedulability analysis.