Model Federation in toolchains

In this paper we introduce the toolchain topic as a federation of models based on an abstraction of dif ferents tool definitions. We consider the toolchain in the context of embedded systems, in particular the co-design which implies a co-engineering approach with many tools. Our main goal is to define a tool integration model to carry out an abstraction of several data formats and for a do main model as a reference vocabulary. This model gathers the concepts for managing the development process artif acts and the roles attributed to these artifacts over th e process. We have experimented this approach during the europ een ARTEMIS iFEST project over the OSLC layer (Open Services for Lifecycle Collaboration)

Does Process Assessment Drive Process Learning? The Case of a Bachelor Capstone Project

International audience— In order to see if process assessment drives processes learning, process assessments were performed in the capstone project of a Bachelor in Computer Science. Assessments use an ability model based on a small subset of ISO/IEC 15504 processes, its main Base Practices and Work Products. Students' point of view was also collected through an anonymous questionnaire. Self-assessment using a competency model helps students to recognize knowledge, skills and experience gained over time and in diverse contexts. The capstone project offered a starting point. Students' self-assessment and external assessment are correlated to some point but are not correlated for topics unaddressed in the curriculum or unknown by students

Relating Student, Teacher and Third-Party Assessments in a Bachelor Capstone Project (short paper)

The capstone is arguably the most important course in any engineering program because it provides a culminating experience and is often the only course intended to develop non-technical, but essential skills. In a software development , the capstone runs from requirements to qualification testing. Indeed, the project progress is sustained by software processes. This paper yields different settings where students, teachers and third-party assessors performed [self-] assessment and the paper analyses corresponding correlation coefficients. The paper presents also some aspects of the bachelor capstone. A research question aims to seek if an external process assessment can be replaced or completed with students' self-assessment. Our initial findings were presented at the International Workshop on Software Process Education Training and Professionalism (IWSPETP) 2015 in Gothenburg, Sweden and we aimed to improve the assessment using teacher and third-party assessments. Revised findings show that, if they are related to curriculum topics, students and teacher assessments are correlated but that external assessment is not suitable in an academic context

Model-based Diagnosis Patterns for Model Checking

International audienceVerification process including model checking is a technique used to verify that a certain system's design satisfies its requirements. It relies on a large collection of heterogeneous artifacts and diagnosing faults is generally a tedious task which should benefit from a knowledge base system to collect and provide access to well-formalized verification artifacts. In the formal method community there is no common agreement on a formalization or organization for the whole verification process artefacts, such as models, traces or sessions of verifications. Hence this paper asks the question about unmet needs for such patterns and their possible relationships, with a particular focus on patterns required for diagnosis techniques such as Model Based Diagnosis or Case Based Diagnosis

An Organizing System to Perform and Enable Verification and Diagnosis Activities

International audienceModel-checkers increasing performance allows engineers to apply model-checking for the verification of real-life system but little attention has been paid to the methodology of model-checking. Verification " in the large " suffers of two practical problems: the verifier has to deal with many verification objects that have to be carefully managed and often re-verified; it is often difficult to judge whether the formalized problem statement is an adequate reflection of the actual problem. An organizing system-an intentionally arranged collection of resources and the interactions they support – makes easier the management of verification objects and supports reasoning interactions that facilitates diagnosis decisions. We discuss the design of such an organizing system , we show a straightforward implementation used within our research team. 1 Introduction System verification is used to establish that the design or product under consideration possesses certain properties. Formal verification has been advocated as a way forward to address verification tasks of complex embedded systems. Formal methods, within the field of computer science, is the formal treatment of problems related to the analysis of designs, but " it does not yet generally offer what its name seems to suggests, viz. methods for the application of formal techniques [1]. " Our research work is underlined by the observation that verification " in the large " causes a proliferation of interrelated models and verification sessions " that must be carefully managed in order to control the overall verification process [1]. " The main technique discussed in this paper is verification by model-checking. " Model checking is a formal verification technique which allows for desired behavioral properties of a given system to be verified on the basis of a suitable model of the system through systematic inspection of all states of the model [2]. " Model-checking walks through different phases within an iterative process [3]: modelling, running the model-checker and analyzing the results. Moreover, the entire verification should be planned, administered, and organized

An approach for describing concurrency and communication of heterogeneous systems

International audienceThe fast development of technology and the time-to-market constraints need well-adapted technical support and development processes to ease design space exploration and the reduction of the productivity gap. Model Based Engineering (MBE) overcomes the increasing complexity of system being highly heterogeneous and integrating concurrent sub-systems. Elsewhere, Models of Computation (MoC) help enforcing MBE with aspects related to the execution semantics of models. In a previous paper, we introduced a language called Cometa providing more expressiveness for these aspects. It allows the capture and analysis of several MoCs at high level of abstraction, highlighting communication and synchronization among parts of a heterogeneous system. The language was tooled in Rhapsody and tested on an industrial case. In this paper, we present the key concepts of the Cometa language and the tooling experiments of Cometa in an open source environment. The objective of this approach is being able to model heterogeneous systems, but also to broaden the scope of the language tooling, by taking benefits from an open source environment

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

International audienceThe development of Real Time Embedded Systems increasingly requires the integration of several parts with different purposes. Consequently, the heterogeneous appearance of such system creates a need to manage their growing complexity mainly due to the difficulty to interconnect the different parts composing them. Model Based Engineering has significantly participated in recent decades to find solutions in terms of methodologies and technical supports tailored to design RTES. Indeed, several models are used to represent different aspects of the system. However, the interconnection of different models paradigm 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 (Models of Computation) can highlight properties for the whole systems execution. In this paper, we propose an approach that captures these semantics the earliest possible in the modeling phases with the aim of exhibiting properties that ease the design space exploration and performance analysis of systems. We also review existing approaches for defining such execution semantics

Framework for Integrating ESL Tools

International audienceToday embedded systems are complex and their development is based on the use of a large set of tools. Although point to point tool integration can be e cient, it is not very well adapted to changing because it remains costly and human expensive. To solve this problem, several approaches on tool integration have been proposed. Even if those approaches handle the exibility and the obsolescence issues, the tool synergy cannot still be achieved due to major problems such as technological or semantic gaps. Recently, new techniques such as model based engineering and communities such as OSLC have emerged. They represent a promising approach for signi cant improvement of integration frameworks. In this paper, we present the basics for an integration framework supporting HW/SW co-design development that takes bene- ts from modeling and current standards. This work is part of the iFEST ARTEMIS project

L'IDM, un levier pour l'intégration d'outils : l'approche iFEST

International audienceLa productivité et l'innovation de l'industrie des systèmes embarqués sont fortement contraintes par des outils de développement très faiblement interopérables. Beaucoup d'efforts se sont portés sur des interactions point à point entre outils pour répondre à des besoins ad hoc ; cependant, l'intégration systématique et souple d'outils représente encore un challenge pour le développement de systèmes complexes. Le projet iFEST (Industrial Framework for Embedded Systems Tools) s'attaque à ce problème d'intégration d'outils en prototypant un ensemble de technologies permettant d'envisager des échanges entre outils avec un minimum d'efforts dans le framework prototypé. iFEST cible particulièrement les outils dédiés à la co-conception logiciel-matériel pour les architectures embarquées hétérogènes et multicoeurs. L'architecture du framework iFEST repose sur un ensemble de métamodèles spécifiant les services et données fournis par les outils d'ingénierie du domaine, l'objectif étant de proposer une chaîne d'outils pilotée par la sémantique sous-jacente et les processus du domaine. Des cas industriels valideront ce framework d'intégration à travers des applications dédiées au contrôle et aux flux de données

Towards Tool Integration through Artifacts and Roles

International audienc