Treffer: Semi-Automatic Fault Localization and Behavior Verification for Physical System Simulation Models

Mathematical modeling and simulation of complex physical systems are emerging as key technologies in engineering. Modern approaches to physical system simulation allow users to specify simulation models with the help of equation-based languages. Due to the highlevel declarative abstraction of these languages program errors are extremely hard to find. This paper presents an algorithmic automated debugging framework for equation-based modeling languages. We show how program slicing and dicing performed at the intermediate code level combined with assertion checking techniques can automate, to a large extent, the error finding process and behavior verification for physical system simulation models. Our prototype debugger prove that algorithmic debugging can enhance considerably a designer's capability to deal with the increasing complexity of today's physical system simulation models described by equation-based languages. 1.