About

Hi!

Welcome to my page! My name is Martin Schwarz, I’m a computer scientist living in Vienna, Austria. I’ve graduated in 2003 from Vienna University of Technology with a nice, local-flavour “Dipl.-Ing.” degree, which is considered equivalent to an “MSc.” at other places.  Since my student days, I’ve been working with TTTech Computertechnik AG, a highly innovative spin-off of TU Vienna, specialized on time-triggered real-time communication.

Currently I’m taking a sabbatical to  work on my PhD at the Quantum Information Theory group of Prof. Frank Verstraete at University of Vienna, Austria.  I’m working in the fascinating field of Quantum Computing in general, and Quantum Computational Complexity Theory in particular. Hopefully at some time I’ll get my draft papers in this area published and my Ph.D. done. For more information, please check out my page on research areas of interest.

Prior to my leave I was responsible for technology management of TTTech’s latest technology called Time-Triggered Ethernet, or TTEthernet for short. It’s currently used on some exciting niche applications, such as NASA Orion CEV, but designed to scale to industrial, aerospace, and automotive markets as well.

Key algorithms of TTEthernet have been formally verified by Formal Methods, which is another area I’m interested in. Formal Methods is all about applying rigorous mathematical reasoning to the verification of critical software and systems in an automated, mechanical way. Since verifying software by testing and reviewing is extremely time-consuming, thus expensive and yet incomplete (you can’t proof the absence of bugs by testing, only their presence), better ways are being sought. Formal Methods, especially under the hood of Model-Based Design, may be a way to overcome this hurdle, but still needs to proof its industrial viability on a large scale. Professionally I have been involved in fostering the use of Formal Methods in the verification of safety critical avionics software in the upcoming and revised DO-178C standard for avionics software certification. But besides technological (making it work effectively in practice) and educational hurdles (teaching software engineers and authorities the application of formal verification and its limitations in real-life), there are also severe regulatory issues (DO-178B) to overcome, which enshrine current practice of testing and reviews as the only admissible way to gain certification credit, thus hindering progress towards more safe and cost effective software development.

Alright, thanks for visiting! And don’t forget to post a comment!

best regards,

Martin

PS: Here is a list of books I need to get.