Concerns Regarding the Adoption of the Model Driven Architecture in the Development of Safety Critical Avionics Applications

Authors: Benjamin Gorry

Abstract:

Safety Critical hard Real-Time Systems are ever present in the avionics industry. The Model Driven Architecture (MDA) offers different levels of model abstraction and generation. This paper discusses our concerns relating to model development and generation when using the MDA approach in the avionics industry. These concerns are based on our experience when looking into adopting the MDA as part of avionics systems development. We place emphasis on transformations between model types and discuss possible benefits of adopting an MDA approach as part of the software development life cycle.

Keywords: Model Driven Architecture, Real-Time AvionicsApplications.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI): doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1074867

References:

[1] Object Management Group. MDA Guide Version 1.0.1, Technical Guide, Object Management Group, June 2003.
[2] Cheng A. M. K. Real-Time Systems - Scheduling, Analysis, and Verification. John Wiley & Sons, Inc, 2002.
[3] Burns A., Wellings, A. Real-time Systems and Programming Languages. Pearson Education Limited, 2001.
[4] Laprie J-C, Dependability: Basic Concepts and Terminology. Springer-Verlag Wien New York, 1991.
[5] Coulouris G., Dollimore, J., Kindberg, T. Distributed Systems - Concepts And Design. Pearson Education Limited, 2001.
[6] Pooley R, Stevens P, Using UML - Software Engineering With Objects and Components. Addison-Wesley, 1999.
[7] RTCA-EUROCAE. Software Considerations In Airborne Systems and Equipment Certification. Do-178B/ED-12B. RTCA and EUROCAE, 1992.
[8] Ministry Of Defence. Safety Management Requirements for Defence Systems. DEF-STAN 00-56, Draft Issue 3, UK Ministry Of Defence, 2004.
[9] Clarke E. M., Grumberg O., Peled D. A., Model Checking. MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1999.
[10] Conmy P., Paige R.F., Challenges when using Model Driven Architecture in the development of Safety Critical Software. Proceedings of 4th International Workshop on Model-based Methodologies for Pervasive and Embedded Software (MOMPES), 2007.
[11] Dijkstra E. W., A Discipline of Programming. Prentice Hall Series In Automatic Computation, Prentice-Hall Inc, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1976.
[12] Object Management Group, Request For Proposal: MOF 2.0 Query / Views / Transformations RFP. Object Management Group, 2002.
[13] Object Management Group, Meta Object Facility (MOF) 2.0 Core Specification. Object Management Group, 2004.
[14] Gardener T., Griffin C., Koehler J., Hauser R., A review of OMG MOF 2.0 Query / Views / Transformations Submissions and Recommendations towards the final Standard. OMG Document: ad/03-08-02.
[15] Object Management Group, Meta Object Facility 2.0 Query/View/Transformation Specification. 2005. http://www.omg.org/docs/ptc/05-11-01.pdf
[16] Holzmann G. J., Smith M.H., An Automated Verification Method for Distributed Systems Software Based on Model Extraction. IEEE Transactions On Software Engineering, 28(4):364-377, 2002.
[17] Gorry B., Ireland A., King P., PARTES: Performance Analysis of Real-Time Embedded Systems. Proceedings of 4th International Conference on the Quantitative Evaluation of Systems (QEST), pg 271- 272, 2007.
[18] Clark T., Evans A., Sammut P., Willans J, Applied Metamodelling: A Foundation for Language-Driven Development Version 0.1. www.xactium.com .
[19] Gerber A., Lawley M., Raymond K., Steel J., Wood A., Transformation: The Missing Link of MDA. Proceedings of the First International Conference on Graph Transformation (ICGT), 2002.
[20] CWM Partners, Common Warehouse Metamodel (CWM) Specification. OMG Documents: ad/01-02- {01,02,03}, February 2001.
[21] Petri C. A., Communications with Automata. Technical Report RADC-TR-65-377, New York, 1966.
[22] Spivey J. M., The Z notation: a reference manual. Prentice-Hall International Series In Computer Science, 1989.
[23] Jones C. B., Software Development: A Rigorous Approach. Prentice Hall International, 1980.
[24] Ben-Ari M., Principles of Concurrent and Distributed Programming. Prentice-Hall International, 1990.
[25] Dix A. J., Formal Methods for Interactive Systems. Academic Press, 1991.
[26] Barnes J., High Integrity Ada: The Spark Approach. Addison- Wesley Professional, 1997.
[27] Hoare C. A. R., An axiomatic basis for computer programming. Communications of the ACM, 1969.
[28] Czarnecki K., Helson S., Classification of Model Transformation Approaches. Proceedings of Object-Oriented Programming, Systems, Languages, and Applications (OOPSLA) Workshop on Generative Techniques in the Context of Model-Driven Architecture, 2003.
[29] Rushby J., A Comparison of Bus Architectures for Safety-Critical Embedded Systems. Technical Report, Computer Science Laboratory, SRI International, 2001.
[30] Czarnecki K., Helsen S., Feature-based survey of model transformation approaches. IBM Systems Journal, Volume 45, Number 3, 2006.
[31] Fleurey F., Steel J., Baudry B., Validation in Model-Driven Engineering: Testing Model Transformations. Proceedings of the First International Workshop on Model, Design and Validation, pg 29-40, 2004.
[32] OMG, Object Constraint Language (OCL), OMG Available Specification, Version 2.0. 2006. http://www.omg.org/docs/formal/06-05-01.pdf
[33] Giese H. et al., Towards Verified Model Transformations. Proceedings 9th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Model Driven Engineering Languages and Systems, 2006.
[34] Nipkow T., Paulson L. C., Wenzel M., Isabelle/HOL : A Proof Assistant for Higher-order Logic. Springer-Verlag Berlin and Heidelberg GmbH & Co. K, 2002.
[35] Kuster J. M., Abd-El-Razik M., Validation of Model Transformations - First Experiences using a White Box Approach. Proceeding of Model Driven Engineering Languages and Systems (MoDELS), pg 193-204, 2006.
[36] Kuster J. M., Systematic Validation of Model Transformations. Proceedings of the 3rd UML Workshop in Software Model Engineering (WiSME), 2004.
[37] Hoare C. A. R., Communicating Sequential Processes. Prentice-Hall International, 1985.
[38] Gamma E. et al, Design Patterns : Elements of Reusable Object- Oriented Software. Addison Wesley, 1995.