Francesco Ranzato's research work has been mostly focused on
abstract interpretation, static analysis and
verification of
software systems.
Abstract interpretation is a general methodology for designing
and formally proving the correctness of approximations of computing systems.
This technique provides generic and powerful tools for designing
static program analyzers, automatic verifiers of software/hardware systems, type systems,
security protocol analyzers, etc.
Abstract interpretation
is a lively research area: SAS and VMCAI are the flagship
annual conferences devoted
to research in abstract interpretation and static analysis, while a significant portion of accepted
papers in top-tier programming languages conferences, like ACM PLDI and
ACM POPL, concerns topics in abstract interpretation
(the top 5 most cited articles at ACM POPL include
three articles on abstract interpretation, in particular the most cited article). Abstract interpretation has
a wide active community
of European (in particular Italian, as witnessed by many Italian
PRIN-funded
research projects
on abstract interpretation), American and Asian researchers.
Abstract interpretation had (and still has) a great industrial impact. Noteworthy examples include: (1) the Polyspace static analyzer for C/C++ and
Ada programs has been fully conceived and designed by abstract interpretation
and is successfully commercialized by
TheMathWorks;
(2) Microsoft Visual Studio IDE incorporates an abstract interpretation-based
static analyzer of .NET bytecode
that allows to automatically derive correctness specifications, the so-called
Code Contracts;
(3) Astree is
a C static analyzer based on abstract interpretation, conceived and designed
by Patrick and Radhia Cousot's research group at ENS Paris, marketed by AbsInt GmbH (Germany),
and used in the defense/aerospace (Airbus, Honda), electronic (Siemens), and automotive industries (Daimler).
For the invention of abstract interpretation together with his wife Radhia Cousot (1947-2014),
Patrick Cousot
has been
the recipient of: the French 1999 CNRS Silver Medal, a honorary doctorate from the
Universit\"{a}t des Saarlandes (Germany), the
2013 ACM SIGPLAN Programming Languages Achievement Award,
the 2014 IEEE Computer Society Harlan D. Mills Award and
the 2018 IEEE John von Neumann Medal.