Attribute based component design: Supporting model driven development in CbSE

In analysing the evolution of Software Engineering, the scale of the components has increased, the requirements for different domains become complex and a variety of different component frameworks and their associated models have emerged. Many modern component frameworks provide enterprise level facilities and services, such as instance management, and component container support, that allow developers to apply if needed to manage scale and complexity. Although the services provided by these frameworks are common, they have different models and implementation. Accordingly, the main problem is, when developing a component based application using a component framework, the design of the components becomes tightly integrated with the framework implementation and the framework model is embedded in the component functionality, and hence reduces reusability. Another problem arose is, the designers must have in-depth knowledge of the implementation of a component framework to be able to model, design and implement the components and take advantages of the services provided. To address these problems, this research proposes the Attribute based Component Design (AbCD) approach which allows developers to model software using logical and abstract components at the specification level. The components encapsulate the provided functionality, as well as the required services, runtime requirements and interaction models using a set of attributes. These attributes are systemically derived by grouping common features and services from light weight component frameworks and heavy weight component frameworks that are available in the literature. The AbCD approach consists of the AbCD Meta-model, which is an extension of the บML meta-model, and the Component Design Guidelines (CDG) that includes core Component based Software Engineering principles to assist the modelling process for designers. To support the AbCD approach, an implementation has been developed as a set of plug-ins, called the AbCD tool suite, for Eclipse IDE. An evaluation of the AbCD approach is conducted by using the tool suite with two case studies. The first case study focuses on abstraction achieved by the AbCD approach and the second focuses on reusability of the components. The evaluation shows that the artefacts produced using the approach provide an alternative architectural view to the design and help to re-factor the design based on aspects. At the same time the evaluation process identified possible improvements in the AbCD meta-model and the tool suite constructed. This research provides a non-invasive approach for designing component based software using model driven development

A Pattern-based Approach towards Modular Safety Analysis and Argumentation

International audienceSafety standards recommend (if not dictate) performing many analyses during the concept phase of development as well as the early adoption of multiple measures at the architectural design level. In practice, the reuse of architectural measures or safety mechanisms is widely-spread, especially in well-understood domains, as is reusing the corresponding safety-cases aiming to document and prove the fulfillment of the underlying safety goals. Safety-cases in the automotive domain are not well-integrated into architectural models and as such do not provide comprehensible and reproducible argumentation nor any evidence for argument correctness. The reuse is mostly ad-hoc, with loss of knowledge and traceability and lack of consistency or process maturity as well as being the most widely spread and cited drawbacks.Using a simplified description of software functions and their most common error management subtypes (avoidance, detection, handling, ..) we propose to define a pattern library covering known solution algorithms and architectural measures/constraints in a seamless holistic model-based approach with corresponding tool support. The pattern libraries would comprise the requirement the pattern covers and the architecture elements/ measures / constraints required and may include deployment or scheduling strategies as well as the supporting safety case template, which would then be integrated into existing development environments. This paper explores this approach using an illustrative example

Integrating models and simulations of continuous dynamic system behavior into SysML

Contemporary systems engineering problems are becoming increasingly complex as they are handled by geographically distributed design teams, constrained by the objectives of multiple stakeholders, and inundated by large quantities of design information. According to the principles of model-based systems engineering (MBSE), engineers can effectively manage increasing complexity by replacing document-centric design methods with computerized, model-based approaches. In this thesis, modeling constructs from SysML and Modelica are integrated to improve support for MBSE. The Object Management Group has recently developed the Systems Modeling Language (OMG SysML ) to provide a comprehensive set constructs for modeling many common aspects of systems engineering problems (e.g. system requirements, structures, functions). Complementing these SysML constructs, the Modelica language has emerged as a standard for modeling the continuous dynamics (CD) of systems in terms of hybrid discrete- event and differential algebraic equation systems. The integration of SysML and Modelica is explored from three different perspectives: the definition of CD models in SysML; the use of graph transformations to automate the transformation of SysML CD models into Modelica models; and the integration of CD models and other SysML models (e.g. structural, requirements) through the depiction of simulation experiments and engineering analyses. Throughout the thesis, example models of a car suspension and a hydraulically-powered excavator are used for demonstration. The core result of this work is the provision of modeling abilities that do not exist independently in SysML or Modelica. These abilities allow systems engineers to prescribe necessary system analyses and relate them to stakeholder concerns and other system aspects. Moreover, this work provides a basis for model integration which can be generalized and re-specialized for integrating other modeling formalisms into SysML.M.S.Committee Chair: Chris Paredis; Committee Member: Dirk Schaefer; Committee Member: Russell Pea

A Smart Products Lifecycle Management (sPLM) Framework - Modeling for Conceptualization, Interoperability, and Modularity

Autonomy and intelligence have been built into many of today’s mechatronic products, taking advantage of low-cost sensors and advanced data analytics technologies. Design of product intelligence (enabled by analytics capabilities) is no longer a trivial or additional option for the product development. The objective of this research is aimed at addressing the challenges raised by the new data-driven design paradigm for smart products development, in which the product itself and the smartness require to be carefully co-constructed. A smart product can be seen as specific compositions and configurations of its physical components to form the body, its analytics models to implement the intelligence, evolving along its lifecycle stages. Based on this view, the contribution of this research is to expand the “Product Lifecycle Management (PLM)” concept traditionally for physical products to data-based products. As a result, a Smart Products Lifecycle Management (sPLM) framework is conceptualized based on a high-dimensional Smart Product Hypercube (sPH) representation and decomposition. First, the sPLM addresses the interoperability issues by developing a Smart Component data model to uniformly represent and compose physical component models created by engineers and analytics models created by data scientists. Second, the sPLM implements an NPD3 process model that incorporates formal data analytics process into the new product development (NPD) process model, in order to support the transdisciplinary information flows and team interactions between engineers and data scientists. Third, the sPLM addresses the issues related to product definition, modular design, product configuration, and lifecycle management of analytics models, by adapting the theoretical frameworks and methods for traditional product design and development. An sPLM proof-of-concept platform had been implemented for validation of the concepts and methodologies developed throughout the research work. The sPLM platform provides a shared data repository to manage the product-, process-, and configuration-related knowledge for smart products development. It also provides a collaborative environment to facilitate transdisciplinary collaboration between product engineers and data scientists

A software development framework for context-aware systems

The beginning of the new century has been characterised by the miniaturisation and accessibility of electronics, which has enabled its widespread usage around the world. This technological background is progressively materialising the future of the remainder of the century, where industry-based societies have been moving towards information-based societies. Information from users and their environment is now pervasively available, and many new research areas have born in order to shape the potential of such advancements. Particularly, context-aware computing is at the core of many areas such as Intelligent Environments, Ambient Intelligence, Ambient Assisted Living or Pervasive Computing. Embedding contextual awareness into computers promises a fundamental enhancement in the interaction between computers and humans. While traditional computers require explicit commands in order to operate, contextually aware computers could also use information from the background and the users to provide services according to the situation. But embedding this contextual awareness has many unresolved challenges. The area of context-aware computing has attracted the interest of many researchers that have presented different approaches to solve particular aspects on the implementation of this technology. The great corpus of research in this direction indicates that context-aware systems have different requirements than those of traditional computing. Approaches for developing context-aware systems are typically scattered or do not present compatibility with other approaches. Existing techniques for creating context-aware systems also do not focus on covering all the different stages of a typical software development life-cycle. The contribution of this thesis is towards the foundation layers of a more holistic approach, that tries to facilitate further research on the best techniques for developing these kinds of systems. The approach presents a framework to support the development not only with methodologies, but with open-source tools that facilitate the implementation of context-aware systems in mobile and stationary platforms

Colored model based testing for software product lines (CMBT-SWPL)

Over the last decade, the software product line domain has emerged as one of the mostpromising software development paradigms. The main benefits of a software product lineapproach are improvements in productivity, time to market, product quality, and customersatisfaction.Therefore, one topic that needs greater emphasis is testing of software product lines toachieve the required software quality assurance. Our concern is how to test a softwareproduct line as early as possible in order to detect errors, because the cost of error detectedIn early phases is much less compared to the cost of errors when detected later.The method suggested in this thesis is a model-based, reuse-oriented test technique calledColored Model Based Testing for Software Product Lines (CMBT-SWPL). CMBT-SWPLis a requirements-based approach for efficiently generating tests for products in a soft-ware product line. This testing approach is used for validation and verification of productlines. It is a novel approach to test product lines using a Colored State Chart (CSC), whichconsiders variability early in the product line development process. More precisely, the vari-ability will be introduced in the main components of the CSC. Accordingly, the variabilityis preserved in test cases, as they are generated from colored test models automatically.During domain engineering, the CSC is derived from the feature model. By coloring theState Chart, the behavior of several product line variants can be modeled simultaneouslyin a single diagram and thus address product line variability early. The CSC representsthe test model, from which test cases using statistical testing are derived.During application engineering, these colored test models are customized for a specificapplication of the product line. At the end of this test process, the test cases are generatedagain using statistical testing, executed and the test results are ready for evaluation. Inxaddition, the CSC will be transformed to a Colored Petri Net (CPN) for verification andsimulation purposes.The main gains of applying the CMBT-SWPL method are early detection of defects inrequirements, such as ambiguities incompleteness and redundancy which is then reflectedin saving the test effort, time, development and maintenance costs

Derivation and consistency checking of models in early software product line engineering

Dissertação para obtenção do Grau de Doutor em Engenharia InformáticaSoftware Product Line Engineering (SPLE) should offer the ability to express the derivation of product-specific assets, while checking for their consistency. The derivation of product-specific assets is possible using general-purpose programming languages in combination with techniques such as conditional compilation and code generation. On the other hand, consistency checking can be achieved through consistency rules in the form of architectural and design guidelines, programming conventions and well-formedness rules. Current approaches present four shortcomings: (1) focus on code derivation only, (2) ignore consistency problems between the variability model and other complementary specification models used in early SPLE, (3) force developers to learn new, difficult to master, languages to encode the derivation of assets, and (4) offer no tool support. This dissertation presents solutions that contribute to tackle these four shortcomings. These solutions are integrated in the approach Derivation and Consistency Checking of models in early SPLE (DCC4SPL) and its corresponding tool support. The two main components of our approach are the Variability Modelling Language for Requirements(VML4RE), a domain-specific language and derivation infrastructure, and the Variability Consistency Checker (VCC), a verification technique and tool. We validate DCC4SPL demonstrating that it is appropriate to find inconsistencies in early SPL model-based specifications and to specify the derivation of product-specific models.European Project AMPLE, contract IST-33710; Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia - SFRH/BD/46194/2008

Extracting software features from online reviews to demonstrate requirements reuse in software engineering

Software Product Lines Engineering is a systematic approach towards realizing software reuse.Among important artifacts to be reused includes requirements, architectures, source codes, designs or even test plans.Requirements reuse if done systematically can expedite the time to market, improve productivity and reduce laborious work. This paper presents the results from an experiment conducted on extracting features from online software reviews to demonstrate our proposed solution to requirements reuse problem.Fifty two software reviews from seven software categories are used as the test data.The automated process proposed is compared to the manual process and the results from experiment indicates significant improvements in terms of time efficiency and F-Measure