Requirements Specification and Automated Evaluation of Dynamic Properties of a Component-Based Design

Abstract

Within a design process, the evaluation of a candidate design solution against a set of requirements may be hard, especially when the requirements concern dynamic properties. For a component-based design, evaluation of the dynamics can be based on dynamic properties of the components, and the way in which they are connected. In this paper an automated approach to the evaluation of dynamic properties of a component-based design is presented. A declarative temporal modelling language to specify and analyse dynamic properties is offered. An executable subset of this language is defined, based on ‘leads to’ relations. If executable specifications in terms of leads to relations of dynamic properties of the (reusable) components within a component-based design are available, then automated support is offered for: (1) simulation of the overall dynamics based on the executable dynamic properties of the components, (2) evaluation of requirements in the form of required overall dynamic properties of a design against a number of execution traces of the design, and (3) proving properties of an overall component-based design from executable properties of its components. The paper presents methods, techniques and software for such support and illustrates these by an example from the application area of component-based software design.