TY - JOUR
T1 - Table-based formal specification approaches for control engineers—empirical studies of usability
AU - Cha, Suhyun
AU - Vogel-Heuser, Birgit
AU - Weigl, Alexander
AU - Ulbrich, Mattias
AU - Beckert, Bernhard
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 The Authors. IET Cyber-Physical Systems: Theory & Applications published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of The Institution of Engineering and Technology.
PY - 2021/12
Y1 - 2021/12
N2 - The dependability characteristic of the control software of manufacturing systems is highlighted more than before, going through repeated changes to cope with various and varying requirements. Formal methods are researched to be applied to automation system engineering to obtain a more effective and efficient quality assurance. One of the approaches, a formal specification language named Generalised Test Tables has been developed with the aim of intuitiveness and accessibility for automation application developers. The result of the experiments conducted to assess the usability of this language is presented here. Focussing on evaluating effectiveness and user satisfaction, three paper-based experiments have been conducted with students at the bachelor and master level. The evaluation results point to positive usability in both comparative effectiveness to conventional language, that is, Petri Nets, and subjective perception of user satisfaction.
AB - The dependability characteristic of the control software of manufacturing systems is highlighted more than before, going through repeated changes to cope with various and varying requirements. Formal methods are researched to be applied to automation system engineering to obtain a more effective and efficient quality assurance. One of the approaches, a formal specification language named Generalised Test Tables has been developed with the aim of intuitiveness and accessibility for automation application developers. The result of the experiments conducted to assess the usability of this language is presented here. Focussing on evaluating effectiveness and user satisfaction, three paper-based experiments have been conducted with students at the bachelor and master level. The evaluation results point to positive usability in both comparative effectiveness to conventional language, that is, Petri Nets, and subjective perception of user satisfaction.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85106528177&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1049/cps2.12017
DO - 10.1049/cps2.12017
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85106528177
SN - 2398-3396
VL - 6
SP - 193
EP - 207
JO - IET Cyber-Physical Systems: Theory and Applications
JF - IET Cyber-Physical Systems: Theory and Applications
IS - 4
ER -