About Rijkswaterstaat
Rijkswaterstaat is responsible for flood safety in the Netherlands. This includes the maintenance and operation of the country’s movable storm surge barriers. These barriers are complex, safety-critical systems with a low frequency of use, yet they play a vital role in protecting the hinterland from flooding. Control systems are a crucial part of their architecture, ensuring that the barriers can be operated in a safe and reliable manner. The traditional approach to replacing or redesigning embedded control systems is time-consuming. Moreover, the predictability of project outcomes and the reliability of delivered software need to better align with the challenges and requirements faced by Rijkswaterstaat.
About the case study
The aim of the case study is to develop control systems for storm surge barriers in a way that ensures demonstrable software reliability, allows projects to be carried out more predictably, and stays within budget and realistic lead times without major surprises. This approach is expected to improve the reliability, traceability, and scalability of control software development.
Rijkswaterstaat is looking into innovative ways to guarantee the software reliability of the storm surge barriers. Therefore Rijkswaterstaat conducts a case study(s) to experience the application of formal methods to the process of creating storm surge barrier control systems. Rijkswaterstaat aims to find out what these methods bring to the table, how they perform in practice and what is needed to apply them in practice to these types of objects.
Rijkswaterstaat needs methods to develop software for their barriers that satisfies the following properties:
- High software reliability (as measured by TOPAAS), without the ability to test the software on the barrier itself.
- Predictable development times, no endless delays due to flaws being found late in the development process.
- Hardware independent specifications capturing the behavior of the software with mathematical rigor. This is especially important when migrating to a newer hardware platform.
Contribution to STORM_SAFE
Transnational cooperation enhances territorial resilience by enabling joint pilots, knowledge exchange, and EU-wide strategies. Rijkswaterstaat contributes a validated approach for reliable control software in storm surge barriers and explores broader applications of formal methods.