Controlling control systems: an application of evolving retrenchment

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Description/Abstract

We review retrenchment as a liberalisation of refinement, for the description of applications too rich (e.g. using continuous and infinite types) for refinement. A specialisation of the notion, evolving retrenchment, is introduced, motivated by the need for an approximate, evolving notion of simulation. The focus of the paper is the case study, a substantial second-order linear control system. The design step from continuous to zero-order hold discrete system is expressible as an evolving retrenchment. Thus we demonstrate that the retrenchment approach can formalise the development of useful applications, which are outside the scope of refinement. The work is presented in a data type-enriched language containing the B language of J.-R. Abrial.