Coherence check of behavioural specifications against specific properties of the operational context

In der Anforderungsspezifikation eines Systems werden Eigenschaften definiert, die das System an seiner Schnittstelle zur Umgebung aufweisen muss, um im Betrieb seinen Zweck zu erfüllen. Eine Vielzahl von Untersuchungen zeigt, dass Fehler in der Anforderungsspezifikation zu erheblichen negativen Konsequenzen sowohl im Entwicklungsprozess des Systems als auch im Systembetrieb führen können. Fehler in der Anforderungsspezifikation sind dabei oftmals auf Kohärenzbrüche gegenüber dem operationellen Kontext zurückzuführen, d. h. auf ungültige oder unvollständige Annahmen über die Umgebung, in der das System betrieben werden soll. Im Rahmen des Dissertationsvorhabens wurde ein teilautomatisierter Ansatz entwickelt, der darauf abzielt, Kohärenzbrüche in der Anforderungsspezifikation von Systemen gegenüber dem operationellen Kontexts dieser Systeme aufzudecken. Die Arbeit fokussiert dabei auf die Verhaltensspezifikation als Teil der Anforderungsspezifikation sowie auf Eigenschaften des operationellen Kontexts in der statisch-strukturellen Perspektive. Der entwickelte Ansatz setzt sich aus einem Rahmenwerk zur Modellierung des operationellen Kontexts in der statisch-strukturellen Perspektive und einem Katalog von Formalismen zusammen, durch deren Anwendung Kohärenzbrüche in der Verhaltensspezifikation teilautomatisiert aufgedeckt werden können. Zur Evaluation des Ansatzes wurde dieser exemplarisch auf die Verhaltensspezifikation eines von Komplexität und Umfang her praxistypischen Systems angewendet. Zum Nachweis der technischen Umsetzbarkeit des Ansatzes wird ein Werkzeugprototyp vorgestellt. Der entwickelte Ansatz liefert einen Beitrag im Hinblick auf Techniken zur differenzierten Modellierung des operationellen Kontexts von Systemen in der statisch-strukturellen Perspektive und zur teilautomatisierten analytischen Qualitätssicherung von Anforderungsspezifikationen.The requirements specification of a system contains the definition of properties the system must exhibit at its interfaces with the environment in order to meet its purpose during system operation. There is ample evidence in the literature that suggests that errors in the requirements specification may lead to serious negative consequences during the development process of the system as well as subsequently, during system operation. Errors in the requirements specification can often be traced back to the fact that the specification is not coherent with the operational context due to invalid or incomplete assumptions about the system’s operating environment. In the context of this dissertation, a semi-automated approach was developed, aiming at detecting coherence defects within a system’s requirements specification against its operational context. The focus of this thesis lies on the specification of the system’s behaviour as part of the requirements specification and on properties of the operational context in the structural perspective. An approach has been developed that consists of a framework for modelling the operational context in the structural perspective. Furthermore, a list of formalisms has been devised, which allow detecting coherence defects in the specification of the system’s behaviour in a partially automated way. For validation purposes, the approach was exemplarily applied to the specification of a system that renders a typical real-world example with regard to complexity and extent. To prove the technical feasibility of the approach, a tool prototype is presented. The dissertation provides a contribution with regard to techniques for modelling the operational context of systems in the structural perspective as well as for the partially automated, analytic quality assurance of requirements specification

Selected Topics on Enterprise and Automated Systems: Editorial Introduction to Issue 4 of CSIMQ

Nowadays enterprise and automated systems play an important role in different business, physical, and social contexts. The fourth issue of the journal Complex Systems Informatics and Modeling Quarterly suggests five challenging studies in this area addressing stakeholder personalities, enterprise actions, business process OR-joint semantics, validation of automated plant control, and safety analysis in complex embedded systems

Extending the SPES Modeling Framework for Supporting Role-specific Variant Management in the Engineering Process of Embedded Software

Abstract: * In many application domains embedded systems and the corresponding embedded software face an increase in sometimes mutually exclusive stakeholder needs like requests from different customers or national legal obligations. In order to meet these needs variability is explicitly designed into the embedded software. Nowadays, in the engineering process of embedded software the variability information is explicitly documented in a dedicated variability model. Hence, the variability model comprises multiple variability-related concerns that are specific to different roles in the lifecycle of embedded software. Each role (e.g. product manager, requirements engineer, architect, maintenance engineer) requires only a specific subset of the variability information that is documented in the variability model to fulfill their certain responsibility. As a consequence, mechanisms for structuring the variability model with respect to the specific role-based variabilityconcerns are needed. In this paper we present an extension of a well-known modelbased engineering framework for embedded software (the SPES Modeling Framework) in order to structure the overall variability model of the embedded software with respect to role-based variability-concerns. 1

Extending an IEEE 42010-Compliant Viewpoint-Based Engineering-Framework for Embedded Systems to Support Variant Management

Part 7: Embedded System ApplicationsInternational audienceThe increasing complexity of today’s embedded systems and the increasing demand for higher quality require a comprehensive engineering approach. The model-based engineering approach that has been developed in the project SPES 2020 (Software Platform Embedded Systems) is intended to comprehensively support the development of embedded systems in the future. The approach allows for specifying an embedded system from different viewpoints that are artefact-based and seamlessly integrated. It is compliant with the IEEE Std. 1471 for specifying viewpoints for architectural descriptions. However, the higher demand for individual embedded software necessitates the integration of variant management into the engineering process of an embedded system. A prerequisite for the seamless integration of variant management is the explicit consideration of variability. Variability allows for developing individual software based on a set of common core assets. Yet, variability is a crosscutting concern as it affects all related engineering disciplines and artefacts across the engineering process of an embedded system. Since the IEEE Std. 1471 does not support the documentation of crosscutting aspects, we apply the concept of perspectives to IEEE Std. 1471’s successor (IEEE Std. 42010) in order to extend the SPES engineering approach to support continuous variant management

On the Model-based Documentation of Knowledge Sources in the Engineering of Embedded Systems 1

Abstract: In the development of embedded systems the context is of vital importance, as embedded systems interact with the context through sensing and actuation. Information about the system’s context is contained within different knowledge sources and must be elicited and negotiated during embedded systems development. Examples for such knowledge sources may be: laws, standards, internal process specification, systems in operation as well as stakeholders. Modelbased documentation of these knowledge sources supports the analysis of the context (e.g. to aid in prioritizing of requirements, to resolve conflicts between knowledge sources, to trace the impact of changes in the context towards the system, or to gain certification of safety-critical systems). Most approaches dealing with knowledge sources are limited to elicitation and negotiation, but lack proper documentation techniques. Therefore, this paper sketches an approach that addresses the documentation of the context of knowledge, to make knowledge about the sources of contextual information comprehensibly persistent. The corresponding models of the contexts of knowledge can e.g. be used to structure the processes of requirements elicitation and context analysis.