Deriving system behavior from UML state machine diagram: Applied to Missile project

Abstract

Traditionally, System Analysis and Software Design are treated as separate processes. Software Design is based on System Analysis but they have little direct relationship to each other. UML (Unified Modeling Language) is widely accepted by industry as the de facto standard for System Analysis and Software Design. The primary tool for System Analysis is the Use Case Diagram and its Scenarios, while the primary tools for Software Design are the Class Diagram and Sequence Diagram. State Machine Diagram is also very useful for behavioral modeling. Our aim is to derive system behavior from software design, so that separate processes can work together. This paper suggests how to make a system-wide State Machine Diagram by gathering State Machine Diagrams in the system using predefined Stereotypes and Synchronization/Externalization. The resulting system-wide State Machine Diagram can be used for various things, such as automatic test case generation for the system, deadlock detection, and Use Case scenario consistency checking. The proposed method is applied to the Missile project of ADD (Agency for Defense Development) in South Korea. The result is very promising. It is expected to be applied to more projects.