Embedded Systems Specific Requirements for Choreography Modelling Language Design

Abstract

Software companies that develop embedded systems following the principles of service-oriented architecture can anticipate various benefits from choreography modelling. Current choreography modelling languages, however, have a limited applicability in embedded systems development since they are not expressive enough to capture all the choreography-relevant aspects that are typical in this domain. This problem is addressed in this study with the analysis of the needs in embedded systems domain for choreography modelling language. The analysis was guided by design science and relied on expert interviews, company-specific documents, relevant scientific literature and the experts' evaluation of the redesigned choreography modelling language. The main results of the analysis presented in this paper are a) design requirements addressing the limitations of choreography modelling languages for embedded systems development and b) proposals for modelling language implementation technologies. The derived design requirements indicate on choreography-relevant embedded systems development aspects such as the constraint-based access and real-time execution. Modelling language implementation technology proposals include Eclipse modelling framework and Sirius. The feasibility of these results is evaluated by redesigning an existing choreography modelling language based on the derived design requirements, implementing a prototype editor for the redesigned language and by evaluating the redesigned language with experts.