Rep. Lois Capps, D-Santa Barbara, on Tuesday announced that researchers at UCSB received a $499,888 grant from the National Science Foundation to research new ways to find and eliminate bugs in modern software systems.

Most work, communication and entertainment done on smartphones and computers now involves using software applications. And increasingly, these applications are web-based and not bound to the computing devices being used, a benefit that comes with a cost — increasing complexity.

Developing software systems is a difficult and error-prone task, and most of the time, developers are not able to find all the errors in a software application before it is released to the users. So, bugs in modern software systems are common, leading to unintended behaviors, security vulnerabilities and crashes.

The UCSB research group is investigating new ways to find and eliminate bugs in modern software systems by developing innovative approaches to software verification, particularly focusing on code that manipulates and updates the data in modern software systems.

“With more and more people using web-based software applications, this funding will support research to make our interactions with these software applications easier, more efficient and more secure,” Capps said. “As technology continues to develop, I am proud that researchers right here at UCSB and all along the Central Coast are working to make sure that we stay on the cutting edge and ensuring that these technologies work for as many people as possible.”

“The funding provided by NSF will enable the group to extend their work on software verification and also develop novel techniques for automatically repairing bugs that they discover,” said professor Tevfik Bultan, who is the principal investigator. “The majority of the funding will be used to hire project personnel (such as graduate student researchers or postdoctoral scholars) to develop novel software verification techniques and implement them in collaboration with me and under my supervision. Some of the funding will be used to buy computers that will be used to implement and experiment with the software that will be developed within the scope of this project.”

— Chris Meagher is the press secretary for Rep. Lois Capps, D-Santa Barbara.