Matthew Luckcuck

Biography

Dr Matt Luckcuck is currently a Post-Doctoral Researcher in the Department of Computer Science and an affiliate of the Hamilton Institute at Maynooth University. He hold a BSc in Computer Science, and an MSc and PhD in Computing from the University of York (UK).

Dr Luckcuck is a member of the Principles of Programming research group, lead by Dr Rosemary Monahan, which specialises in the static and dynamic analysis of software. His research interests include formal behavioural specification, model-checking, runtime verification, and safety verification and assurance for autonomous, automated, and other safety-critical systems.

Dr Luckcuck is currently funded by the H2020 ESCEL JU programme 'Verification and Validation of
Automated Systems’ Safety and Security' (VALU3S), where his research centres on formal verification
techniques for an aircraft engine software controller. In this project, his research work has been in close collaboration with industrial partners in the aerospace sector. This has been an interesting opportunity to gain expertise in specifying a system’s requirements at a very high level, in collaboration with industry.

His previous post-doctoral project was in the UK, at the University of Liverpool and then the University of Manchester. Here, Dr Luckcuck was funded by the EPSRC Robotics and AI in Nuclear (RAIN) Hub, where his research focussed on formal verification for robotics and autonomous systems in nuclear environments. During this project, he collaborated closely with the UK’s nuclear regulator, the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR), to develop guidance for developers of autonomous systems that ensures their systems are amenable to robust verification and can provide useful assurance evidence. The RAIN project gave Dr Luckcuck a wealth of experience with a variety of existing robotic systems, and sparked an interest in broader issues related to autonomous systems; such as: verification of decisions, and ethical impacts.











Research Interests

formal behavioural specification, model-checking, runtime verification, and safety
verification and assurance for autonomous, automated, and other safety-critical systems.

Research Projects

Title Role Description Start date End date Amount
VALU3S - Verification and Validation of Automated Systems' Safety and Security Post-Doctoral Researcher 01/01/2021
Robotics and AI in Nuclear (RAIN) Hub Post Doctoral Researcher 01/11/2022 31/12/2021

Post Doctoral Fellows / Research Team

Researcher Name Project Funding Body
Rosemary Monahan VALU3S

Peer Reviewed Journal

Year Publication
2021 Michael Fisher; Rafael C. Cardoso; Emily C. Collins; Christopher Dadswell; Louise A. Dennis; Clare Dixon; Marie Farrell; Angelo Ferrando; Xiaowei Huang; Mike Jump; Georgios Kourtis; Alexei Lisitsa; Matt Luckcuck; Shan Luo; Vincent Page; Fabio Papacchini; Matt Webster; (2021) 'An Overview of Verification and Validation Challenges for Inspection Robots'. Journal of Robotics, . [DOI]
2021 Luckcuck, M (2021) 'Using formal methods for autonomous systems: Five recipes for formal verification'. Proceedings Of The Institution Of Mechanical Engineers, Part O: Journal Of Risk And Reliability, . [DOI] [Full-Text]
2019 Luckcuck, M.; Farrell, M.; Dennis, L.A.; Dixon, C.; Fisher, M.; (2019) 'Formal specification and verification of autonomous robotic systems: A survey'. ACM Computing Surveys, . [DOI]
2017 Luckcuck, M.; Wellings, A.; Cavalcanti, A.; (2017) 'Safety-Critical Java: level 2 in practice'. Concurrency Computation, . [DOI]

Conference Publication

Year Publication
2022 Sheridan O.; Monahan R.; Luckcuck M. (2022) Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics) A Requirements-Driven Methodology: Formal Modelling and Verification of an Aircraft Engine Controller [DOI]
2022 Luckcuck M.; Cardoso R.C. (2022) Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics) Formal Verification of a Map Merging Protocol in the Multi-agent Programming Contest [DOI]
2022 MacConville D.; Farrell M.; Luckcuck M.; Monahan R. (2022) Electronic Proceedings in Theoretical Computer Science, EPTCS Modelling the Turtle Python library in CSP [DOI]
2022 Farrell M.; Luckcuck M.; Sheridan O.; Monahan R. (2022) Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics) FRETting About Requirements: Formalised Requirements for an Aircraft Engine Controller [DOI]
2022 Farrell M.; Luckcuck M.; Sheridan O.; Monahan R. (2022) Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics) Towards Refactoring FRETish Requirements [DOI]
2021 Farrell M.; Luckcuck M.; Pullum L.; Fisher M.; Hessami A.; Gal D.; Murahwi Z.; Wallace K. (2021) Proceedings - 2021 IEEE International Symposium on Software Reliability Engineering Workshops, ISSREW 2021 Evolution of the IEEE P7009 Standard: Towards Fail-Safe Design of Autonomous Systems [DOI]
2020 (2020) EPTCS 329, 2020, pp. 15-22 Towards Compositional Verification for Modular Robotic Systems [DOI]
2020 Cardoso R.C.; Dennis L.A.; Farrell M.; Fisher M.; Luckcuck M. (2020) Electronic Proceedings in Theoretical Computer Science, EPTCS Towards compositional verification for modular robotic systems [DOI]
2020 (2020) Lecture Notes in Computer Science Heterogeneous Verification of an Autonomous Curiosity Rover [DOI]
2019 (2019) Lecture Notes in Computer Science A Summary of Formal Specification and Verification of Autonomous Robotic Systems [DOI]
2018 (2018) Integrated Formal Methods Robotics and Integrated Formal Methods: Necessity Meets Opportunity [DOI]
2018 Fisher, M.; Collins, E.; Dennis, L.; Luckcuck, M.; Webster, M.; Jump, M.; Page, V.; Patchett, C.; Dinmohammadi, F.; Flynn, D.; Robu, V.; Zhao, X.; (2018) Proceedings - 29th IEEE International Symposium on Software Reliability Engineering Workshops, ISSREW 2018 Verifiable Self-Certifying Autonomous Systems [DOI]
2016 (2016) Integrated Formal Methods: 12th International Conference, IFM 2016, Reykjavik, Iceland, June 1-5, 2016, Proceedings A Formal Model of the Safety-Critical Java Level 2 Paradigm [DOI]
2013 Andy Wellings; Matt Luckcuck; Ana Cavalcanti; (2013) Proceedings of the 11th International Workshop on Java Technologies for Real-time and Embedded Systems - JTRES '13 Safety-critical Java level 2 [DOI]

Conference Contribution

Year Publication
2015 (2015) A Formal Model for the SCJ Level 2 Paradigm .
Certain data included herein are derived from the © Web of Science (2023) of Clarivate. All rights reserved.

Committees

Committee Function From / To
Organising Committee of the workshop on Formal Methods for Autonomous Systems (FMAS) Founding Member 01/05/2019 -
IEEE SA P7009 Working Group Member 01/08/2019 -
FME Communications Comittee Member 10/05/2021 -
ACM SIGAI Appointed Officers Co-Information Officer 03/05/2021 -

Employment

Employer Position From / To
National University of Ireland Maynooth Post-Doctoral Researcher 01/01/2021 -
University of Manchester Research Associate 01/07/2020 - 01/01/2021
University of Liverpool Research Associate 01/11/2017 - 01/07/2020
University of York Research Assistant 01/01/2015 - 01/01/2015

Education

Start date Institution Qualification Subject
University of York PhD Computer Science
University of York MSc with Merit Computing
University of Wolverhampton Bsc (Hons) Computer Science