Towards MARTE++ : an enhanced UML-based language to Model and Analyse Real-Time and Embedded Systems for the IoT age

This paper presents requirements for an enhanced version of the UML Profile for MARTE, the current standard of the OMG for the modelling and analysis of real-time embedded systems. Since its adoption by the OMG in 2009 and after the various additions along recent years, MARTE has been essayed in a number of application domains and validation approaches. This paper makes a review of these various efforts describing extensions, additional functionality, and modeling needs that may serve as inputs for the preparation of a formal request for proposals (RFP) at the OMG. Aspects that have been found useful to have in it include modern platforms like Multi-core, Many-core and GPUs, networking for broader domains like the Internet of Things, federation of all modelling artifacts involved in the development process, including tracing mechanisms embedded in the language to link design and run-time artifacts, and more elaborated kinds of quantitative analyses and extra functional properties, like energy and memory consumption, heat dissipation, and temperature distribution. Also methodological aspects like its specification as a profile and/or as a meta-model will need to be discussed. Finally, the standard needs to be reviewed against the new executable UML related specifications; particularly to be in alignment with those semantics of state machines and composite structures.This work receives funding from the Spanish Government under grant number TIN2014-56158-C4-2-P (M2C2), and from the Electronic Component Systems for European Leadership Joint Undertaking under grant agreement No 737494 (MegaM@RT2). This Joint Undertaking receives support from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme and Sweden, France, Spain, Italy, Finland, Czech Republic. We thank the anonymous reviewers for their insights and proposals of improvement

Analysis as first-class citizens – an application to Architecture Description Languages

Architecture Description Languages (ADLs) support modeling and analysis of systems through models transformation and exploration. Various contributions made proposals to bring verification capabilities to designers through model-based frame- works and illustrated benefits to the overall system quality. Model-level analyses are usually performed as an exogenous, unidirectional and semantically weak transformation towards a third-party model. We claim such process can be incomplete and/or inefficient because gathered results lead to evolution of the primary model. This is particularly problematic for the design of Distributed Real-Time Embedded (DRE) systems that has to tackle many concerns like time, security or safety. In this paper, we argue why analysis should no longer be considered as a side step in the design process but, rather, should be embedded as a first-class citizen in the model itself. We review several standardized architecture description languages, which consider analysis as a goal. As an element of solution, we introduce current work on the definition of a language dedicated to the analysis of models within the scope of one particular ADL, namely the Architecture Analysis and Design Language (AADL)

Towards a UML Profile for Data Intensive Applications

Data intensive applications that leverage Big Data technologies are rapidly gaining market trend. However, their design and quality assurance are far from satisfying software engineers needs. In fact, a CapGemini research shows that only 13% of organizations have achieved full-scale production for their Big Data implementations. We aim at addressing an early design and a quality evaluation of data intensive applications, being our goal to help software engineers on assessing quality metrics, such as the response time of the application. We address this goal by means of a quality analysis tool-chain. At the core of the tool, we are developing a Profile that converts the Unified Modeling Language into a domain specific modeling language for quality evaluation of data intensive applications

A High-level Methodology for Automatically Generating Dynamic Partially Reconfigurable Systems using IP-XACT and the UML MARTE Profile

International audienceDynamic Partial Reconfiguration (DPR) has been introduced in recent years as a method to increase the flexibility of FPGA designs. However, using DPR for building com- plex systems remains a daunting task. Recently, approaches based on Model-Driven Engi- neering (MDE) and UML MARTE standard have emerged which aim to simplify the design of complex SoCs, and in some cases, DPR systems. Nevertheless, many of these approaches lacked a standard intermediate representation to pass from high-levels of descriptions to ex- ecutable models. However, with the recent standardization of the IP-XACT specification, there is an increasing interest to use it in MDE methodologies to ease system integration and to enable design flow automation. In this paper we propose an MARTE/MDE approach which exploits the capabilities of IP-XACT to model and automatically generate DPR SoC designs. We present the MARTE modeling concepts and how these models are mapped to IP-XACT objects; the emphasis is given to the generation of IP cores that can be used in the Xilinx EDK (Embedded Design Kit) environment, since we aim to develop a complete flow around their Dynamic Partial Reconfiguration design flow. Finally, we present a case study integrating the presented concepts, showing the benefits in design efforts compared with a purely VHDL approach and using solely EDK. Experimental results show a reduction of the design efforts required to obtain the netlist required for the DPR design flow from hours required in VHDL and Xilinx EDK, to less the one hour and minutes for IP integration

A UML Profile for the Design, Quality Assessment and Deployment of Data-intensive Applications

Big Data or Data-Intensive applications (DIAs) seek to mine, manipulate, extract or otherwise exploit the potential intelligence hidden behind Big Data. However, several practitioner surveys remark that DIAs potential is still untapped because of very difficult and costly design, quality assessment and continuous refinement. To address the above shortcoming, we propose the use of a UML domain-specific modeling language or profile specifically tailored to support the design, assessment and continuous deployment of DIAs. This article illustrates our DIA-specific profile and outlines its usage in the context of DIA performance engineering and deployment. For DIA performance engineering, we rely on the Apache Hadoop technology, while for DIA deployment, we leverage the TOSCA language. We conclude that the proposed profile offers a powerful language for data-intensive software and systems modeling, quality evaluation and automated deployment of DIAs on private or public clouds

QuantUM: Quantitative Safety Analysis of UML Models

When developing a safety-critical system it is essential to obtain an assessment of different design alternatives. In particular, an early safety assessment of the architectural design of a system is desirable. In spite of the plethora of available formal quantitative analysis methods it is still difficult for software and system architects to integrate these techniques into their every day work. This is mainly due to the lack of methods that can be directly applied to architecture level models, for instance given as UML diagrams. Also, it is necessary that the description methods used do not require a profound knowledge of formal methods. Our approach bridges this gap and improves the integration of quantitative safety analysis methods into the development process. All inputs of the analysis are specified at the level of a UML model. This model is then automatically translated into the analysis model, and the results of the analysis are consequently represented on the level of the UML model. Thus the analysis model and the formal methods used during the analysis are hidden from the user. We illustrate the usefulness of our approach using an industrial strength case study.Comment: In Proceedings QAPL 2011, arXiv:1107.074

From UML to AADL: a Need for an Explicit Execution Semantics Modeling with MARTE

International audienceA modeling process for real-time embedded systems may involve the coordinated use of several languages. Each of these languages are dedicated to a particular phase of development (specification, design, test, ...) and coupled with various tools (scheduling analysis, formal verification, model checker,...). The combined use of UML and AADL is an increasing practice. UML and its recent MARTE (Modeling and Analysis of Real-Time and Embedded systems) profile seem suitable for capturing requirements, analysis and preliminary design. AADL is tailored for the detailed design phase and offers linked validation and verification tools. In order to combine UML/MARTE and AADL, translation mechanisms between these two formalisms have to be defined. Previous works have defined translations between the structural concepts of AADL and MARTE artifacts. However, the behavioral aspect have also to be treated. The presented work focuses on the translation of the thread execution and communication semantics. It is a pragmatic and on-going approach, validated in an industrial context, on representative examples

Towards model-driven engineering for mixed-criticality systems: multiPARTES approach

Mixed criticality systems emerges as a suitable solution for dealing with the complexity, performance and costs of future embedded and dependable systems. However, this paradigm adds additional complexity to their development. This paper proposes an approach for dealing with this scenario that relies on hardware virtualization and Model-Driven Engineering (MDE). Hardware virtualization ensures isolation between subsystems with different criticality levels. MDE is intended to bridge the gap between design issues and partitioning concerns. MDE tooling will enhance the functional models by annotating partitioning and extra-functional properties. System partitioning and subsystems allocation will be generated with a high degree of automation. System configuration will be validated for ensuring that the resources assigned to a partition are sufficient for executing the allocated software components and that time requirements are met

Collaborative Verification-Driven Engineering of Hybrid Systems

Hybrid systems with both discrete and continuous dynamics are an important model for real-world cyber-physical systems. The key challenge is to ensure their correct functioning w.r.t. safety requirements. Promising techniques to ensure safety seem to be model-driven engineering to develop hybrid systems in a well-defined and traceable manner, and formal verification to prove their correctness. Their combination forms the vision of verification-driven engineering. Often, hybrid systems are rather complex in that they require expertise from many domains (e.g., robotics, control systems, computer science, software engineering, and mechanical engineering). Moreover, despite the remarkable progress in automating formal verification of hybrid systems, the construction of proofs of complex systems often requires nontrivial human guidance, since hybrid systems verification tools solve undecidable problems. It is, thus, not uncommon for development and verification teams to consist of many players with diverse expertise. This paper introduces a verification-driven engineering toolset that extends our previous work on hybrid and arithmetic verification with tools for (i) graphical (UML) and textual modeling of hybrid systems, (ii) exchanging and comparing models and proofs, and (iii) managing verification tasks. This toolset makes it easier to tackle large-scale verification tasks