Prof. Dr. Falk Howar

About Me

I am a professor for software engineering at TU Dortmund University and the coordinator for software engineering research at Fraunhofer ISST. 

I am interested in the development of correct and safe software systems with a particular focus on automated analysis, testing, and verification of such systems. My work is mainly based on automated generation of behavioral models of components, systems, and their environments using dynamic and static analysis techniques. I like to work on problems that have a strong motivation in practical challenges. I applied my research to automotive and aeronautical control software, automated air-traffic management software, and in industrial software development tools:

Model Learning. I have contributed to seminal results and widely used open-source tools in the fields of active automata learning. Together with colleagues, I have recently started to investigate how model learning can be used to infer behavioral models of intelligent systems.

Software and System Verification. I have developed verification techniques and tools that rely on symbolic models of behavior and logic constraint solvers for deciding verification problems.

Trustworthy Intelligent Systems. I have worked on reliable intelligent systems in different contexts. At NASA Ames Research Center, I worked on the validation of an intelligent automated air-traffic control system and the verification of an airplane autopilot. In collaboration with an automotive OEM, I work on the safety of autonomous vehicles (AVs). Some of my works are cited as reference in the ISO 21448 norm (safety of the intended functionality). In the context of data sovereignity, I have worked on the design principles and technical solutions for data eco systems with colleagues at Fraunhofer.

Tools

For links and detailed descriptions check the tools page or on GitHub.

• JDart/GDart: frameworks for dynamic symbolic execution of Java programs
• RaLib: an extension of LearnLib for Register Automata
• LearnLib: a library for automata learning
• JConstraints: a constraint solver abstraction layer for Java

Service

Editor

I am currently one of the managing editors of electronic communications of the European Association of Software Science and Technology (ECEASST)

Since 2022, I am a member of the editorial board of STTT theme “Explanation Paradigms Leveraging Algebraic Intuition (ExPLAIn)”

Program Committees

• 2023: TAP 2023, ICGI 2023, AISoLA 2023
• 2022: JPF 2022, LearnAut at ICALP 2022, TAP 2022, SV-Comp 2023, ISoLA 2022
• 2021: TACAS 2022, iMLSE 2021, SV-Comp 2022
• 2020: TACAS 2021, ICGI 2020, NFM 2020, SV-Comp 2021
• 2019: TACAS 2020 (Tool Chair), ETAPS 2020 (Workshop Chair), NFM 2020, JPF-WS 2019, SV-Comp 2020
• 2018: TACAS 2019, ISoLA 2020 (Chair of industrial track), FMICS (Chair)
• 2017: TACAS 2018, LearnAut 2017, JPF WS 2017
• 2016: TACAS 2017, NFM 2016, ICGI 2016, ISoLA 2016
• 2015: VST2016, SEFM 2015, SOFSEM 2015, JPF WS 2015
• 2014: Artifact Evaluation of ISSTA 2014 (Chair), SEFM 2014, ICGI 2014, JPF WS 2014, ISoLA 2014
• 2013: JPF WS 2013
• 2012: ISoLA 2012, JIMSE 2012
• 2011: EternalS 2011, Int. ISoLA WS on Machine Learning for Software Construction
• 2010: RERS Workshop at ISoLA 2010

In the News

• [September 2021] Amazon Research Award for Scaling Symbolic Execution to Analyze Web Applications
• [February 2020] BitSTRICT Panel on Future of Embedded Systems
• [März 2018] Attract Group for Scenario-based Testing of Autonomous Robotic Systems.
• [February 2017] CACM article and title page on model learning by Frits Vaandrager mentions LearnLib and RaLib (CACM Vol. 60 No. 2, Pages 86-95) [Link to Article]
• [2016/12/28] Interview on the research of IPSSE in Braunschweiger Zeitung [Photo of the Article]
• [2016/07/06] The Prime Minister of Lower Saxony visited IPSSE on July 5th, 2016. [Article on tu-clausthal.de]