MADES: A SysML/MARTE high level methodology for real-time and embedded systems

International audienceRapid evolution of real-time and embedded systems (RTES) is continuing at an increasing rate, and new method-ologies and design tools are needed to reduce design complexity while decreasing development costs and integrating aspects such as verification and validation. Model-Driven Engineering offers an interesting solution to the above mentioned challenges and is being widely used in various industrial and academic research projects. This paper presents the EU funded MADES project which aims to develop novel model-driven techniques to improve existing practices in development of RTES for avionics and surveillance embedded systems industries. MADES proposes a subset of existing UML profiles for embedded systems modeling: namely MARTE and SysML, and is developing new tools and technologies that support design, validation, simulation and eventual automatic code generation, while integrating aspects such as component re-use. In this paper, we first introduce the MADES language, which enables rapid system design and specification that can be then taken by underlying MADES tools for goals such as simulation or code generation. Finally, we illustrate the various concepts present in the MADES language by means of a car collision avoidance system case study

Model-Based Engineering for the support of Models of Computation: The Cometa Approach

The development of Real-Time Embedded Systems (RTES) increasingly requires the integration of several parts with different purposes. Consequently, the heterogeneous appearance of such systems creates a need to manage their growing complexity mainly due to the difficulty to interconnect the different parts composing them. Model-Based Engineering (MBE) has significantly participated in recent decades to find solutions in terms of methodologies and technical support tailored to the design of RTES. Indeed, several models are used to represent different aspects of the system. However, the interconnection of different modeling paradigms is still a difficult challenge. The handling of such problems requires a clear definition of the execution and interconnection semantics of the different models composing the system. Indeed, the abstraction of the execution semantics of machines or Models of Computation (MoC) can highlight properties for the whole system’s execution. In this paper, we propose an approach that captures these semantics at the earliest modeling phases with the aim of exhibiting properties that ease the design space exploration and performance analysis of systems. Our approach extends the Modeling and Analysis of Real-Time Embedded Systems profile (MARTE) by providing means to express communication semantics of models. We also review existing approaches for defining such execution semantics

MADES FP7 EU project: Effective high level SysML/MARTE methodology for real-time and embedded avionics systems

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Efficient Embedded System Development: A Workbench for an Integrated Methodology

International audienceThe scientific foundations of embedded system development associate two disciplines that have largely grown on their own: computer science and electrical engineering. This superposition of two domains with little common ground raises a number of industrial issues in team work organisation, sound progress tracking, and cooperation between these different skills and cultures. In this paper we introduce HOE², an integrated MDE method for embedded system development that is organised around a set of limited yet powerful artefacts. We describe how HOE² can address the issues faced during development of mixed HW/SW systems and present the first version of a tool dedicated to its instrumentation

Algorithms for compression of high dynamic range images and video

The recent advances in sensor and display technologies have brought upon the High Dynamic Range (HDR) imaging capability. The modern multiple exposure HDR sensors can achieve the dynamic range of 100-120 dB and LED and OLED display devices have contrast ratios of 10^5:1 to 10^6:1. Despite the above advances in technology the image/video compression algorithms and associated hardware are yet based on Standard Dynamic Range (SDR) technology, i.e. they operate within an effective dynamic range of up to 70 dB for 8 bit gamma corrected images. Further the existing infrastructure for content distribution is also designed for SDR, which creates interoperability problems with true HDR capture and display equipment. The current solutions for the above problem include tone mapping the HDR content to fit SDR. However this approach leads to image quality associated problems, when strong dynamic range compression is applied. Even though some HDR-only solutions have been proposed in literature, they are not interoperable with current SDR infrastructure and are thus typically used in closed systems. Given the above observations a research gap was identified in the need for efficient algorithms for the compression of still images and video, which are capable of storing full dynamic range and colour gamut of HDR images and at the same time backward compatible with existing SDR infrastructure. To improve the usability of SDR content it is vital that any such algorithms should accommodate different tone mapping operators, including those that are spatially non-uniform. In the course of the research presented in this thesis a novel two layer CODEC architecture is introduced for both HDR image and video coding. Further a universal and computationally efficient approximation of the tone mapping operator is developed and presented. It is shown that the use of perceptually uniform colourspaces for internal representation of pixel data enables improved compression efficiency of the algorithms. Further proposed novel approaches to the compression of metadata for the tone mapping operator is shown to improve compression performance for low bitrate video content. Multiple compression algorithms are designed, implemented and compared and quality-complexity trade-offs are identified. Finally practical aspects of implementing the developed algorithms are explored by automating the design space exploration flow and integrating the high level systems design framework with domain specific tools for synthesis and simulation of multiprocessor systems. The directions for further work are also presented

Conception et vérification d'exigences de sûreté temporisées à base de contrats dans les modèles SysML

De nos jours, les systèmes informatiques croissent en taille et en complexité. Intégrés dans des dispositifs de différents domaines tels que l'avionique, l'aéronautique, l'électronique grand public, etc., ils sont souvent considérés comme critiques à l'égard de la vie humaine, des coûts et de l'environnement. Concevoir des systèmes embarqués temps-réel critiques sûrs et fiables est une tâche difficile, étant donné que leurs modèles sont souvent source d'erreurs. Une façon pour les concepteurs de contourner cette difficulté consiste à s'appuyer sur la modélisation compositionnelle de composants logiciels pilotée par les exigences. Le raisonnement à base de contrats permet de construire des composants sûrs à partir des exigences globales du système en interposant des spécifications abstraites et partielles entre les besoins du système et les composants eux-mêmes. Informellement, un contrat modélise le comportement abstrait d'un composant du point de vue de l'exigence à satisfaire (c.a.d garantie) dans un contexte donné (c.a.d. hypothèse). Les contrats peuvent être exploités pour décomposer et tracer les exigences au cours d'un développement itératif, mais aussi pour effectuer une vérification compositionnelle de la satisfaction des exigences. Dans cette thèse, nous présentons une méthodologie de raisonnement à base de contrats pour la conception et la vérification de systèmes sûrs développés en SysML. Ainsi, nous définissons en UML/SysML la syntaxe des contrats et des relations de raffinement entre contrats et/ou composants qui sont utilisées pour prouver la correction du système par rapport aux exigences. Ensuite, nous proposons un cadre formel qui modélise la sémantique d'un modèle UML/SysML étendu par des contrats selon une variante d'automates temporisés entrée/sortie et nous définissons la correspondance entre ces concepts. Nous formalisons les relations de raffinement par la relation d'inclusion de traces et nous prouvons leurs propriétés compositionnelles ce qui assure la correction de la méthodologie. L'approche est instanciée pour le profil OMEGA et la boîte à outils IFx2 qui génère partiellement les obligations de preuve. Finalement, plusieurs études de cas dont une issue de l'industrie complètent la théorie pour évaluer l'approche à base de contrats et ses résultats et les comparer aux méthodes classiques de model-checking.Nowadays computer systems grow larger in size and more complex. Embedded in devices from different domains like avionics, aeronautics, consumer electronics, etc., they are often considered critical with respect to human life, costs and environment. A development that results in safe and reliable critical real-time embedded systems is a challenging task, considering that errors are accidentally inserted in the design. A way for system designers to tackle this issue is to use a compositional design technique based on components and driven by requirements: it allows to infer from global requirements, component properties that must locally hold. Contract-based reasoning allows to compositionally derive correct components from global system requirements by interposing abstract and partial specifications for components. Informally, a contract models the abstract behavior a component exhibits from the point of view of the requirement to be satisfied (i.e. guarantee) in a given context (i.e. assumption). Contracts can be used to decompose and trace requirements during iterative design, but also to perform compositional verification of requirement satisfaction. In this thesis, we present a methodology for reasoning with contracts during system design and verification within SysML. Thus, we define the syntax for contracts in UML/SysML, as well as a set of refinement relations between contracts and/or components in order to prove the system's correctness with respect to requirements. Next, we provide a formal framework that models the semantics of a UML/SysML model extended with contracts as a mapping of the language concepts to a variant of Timed Input/Output Automata. The refinement relations are formalized based on the trace inclusion relation and compositional properties are proved to hold which ensures the soundness of the methodology. The approach is instantiated for the OMEGA Profile and IFx2 toolset with partial automatic generation of proof obligations. Finally, the approach is applied on several case studies, including an industry-grade system model, which show its efficiency by comparative verification results

A Framework for Executable Systems Modeling

Systems Modeling Language (SysML), like its parent language, the Unified Modeling Language (UML), consists of a number of independently derived model languages (i.e. state charts, activity models etc.) which have been co-opted into a single modeling framework. This, together with the lack of an overarching meta-model that supports uniform semantics across the various diagram types, has resulted in a large unwieldy and informal language schema. Additionally, SysML does not offer a built in framework for managing time and the scheduling of time based events in a simulation. In response to these challenges, a number of auxiliary standards have been offered by the Object Management Group (OMG); most pertinent here are the foundational UML subset (fUML), Action language for fUML (Alf), and the UML profile for Modeling and Analysis of Real Time and Embedded Systems (MARTE). However, there remains a lack of a similar treatment of SysML tailored towards precise and formal modeling in the systems engineering domain. This work addresses this gap by offering refined semantics for SysML akin to fUML and MARTE standards, aimed at primarily supporting the development of time based simulation models typically applied for model verification and validation in systems engineering. The result of this work offers an Executable Systems Modeling Language (ESysML) and a prototype modeling tool that serves as an implementation test bed for the ESysML language. Additionally a model development process is offered to guide user appropriation of the provided framework for model building

A Model-based Approach for Designing Cyber-Physical Production Systems

The most recent development trend related to manufacturing is called "Industry 4.0". It proposes to transition from "blind" mechatronics systems to Cyber-Physical Production Systems (CPPSs). Such systems are capable of communicating with each other, acquiring and transmitting real-time production data. Their management and control require a structured software architecture, which is tipically referred to as the "Automation Pyramid". The design of both the software architecture and the components (i.e., the CPPSs) is a complex task, where the complexity is induced by the heterogeneity of the required functionalities. In such a context, the target of this thesis is to propose a model-based framework for the analysis and the design of production lines, compliant with the Industry 4.0 paradigm. In particular, this framework exploits the Systems Modeling Language (SysML) as a unified representation for the different viewpoints of a manufacturing system. At the components level, the structural and behavioral diagrams provided by SysML are used to produce a set of logical propositions about the system and components under design. Such an approach is specifically tailored towards constructing Assume-Guarantee contracts. By exploiting reactive synthesis techniques, contracts are used to prototype portions of components' behaviors and to verify whether implementations are consistent with the requirements. At the software level, the framework proposes a particular architecture based on the concept of "service". Such an architecture facilitates the reconfiguration of components and integrates an advanced scheduling technique, taking advantage of the production recipe SysML model. The proposed framework has been built coupled with the construction of the ICE Laboratory, a research facility consisting of a full-fledged production line. Such an approach has been adopted to construct models of the laboratory, to virtual prototype parts of the system and to manage the physical system through the proposed software architecture