The grand vision of synthesis is that an engineer analyzes the design objectives that capture what the system should do while the synthesis algorithm decides how the system will meet these objectives. This shifts the burden of writing a correct implementation from the engineer to the synthesis algorithm, while the engineer needs to ensure the correctness of the specification. The synthesis process supports the engineer in identifying competing or contradictory requirements and obtaining an error-free specification from which a correct implementation can be synthesized.

Our research targets the synthesis of distributed systems with multiple components and cyber-physical systems that combine discrete controllers with models of the dynamics of their physical environment. We specifically aim for synthesis techniques that produce understandable, trustworthy solutions. For example, explainable synthesis provides explanations for design decisions; knowledge-based synthesis explains the behavior of the system by referring to the evolving knowledge of the individual components.