A UML2 Profile for Reusable and Verifiable Software Components for Real-Time Applications

Abstract

Software frameworks offer sets of reusable and adaptable compo-nents embedded within an architecture optimized for a given target domain. This paper introduces an approach to the design of software frameworks for real-time applications. Real-Time applications are characterized by functional and non-functional (e.g. timing) requirements. The proposed approach separates the treatment of these two aspects. For functional issues, it defines an extensible state machine concept to define components that encapsulate functional behaviour and offer adaptation mechanisms to extend this behaviour which warrant preservation of the functional properties that characterize the framework. For timing issues, it defines software structures that are provably endowed with specific timing properties and which encapsulate functional activity in a way that warrants their enforcement. A UML2 profile is defined that formally captures both aspects and allows the proposed strategy to be deployed at design level.