Towards a comprehensive environment for the engineering of embedded control systems based on UML

With the ever increasing complexity of embedded control systems, design and implementation have to fulfill demanding requirements with respect to functionality, timing, reliability, cost, safety and security. To meet these requirements, an integrated development environment based on an extended UML is designed. It aims at providing a comprehensive set of methods and tools for all development phases of complex embedded control systems. For the environment to be fully integrated, the gaps between the applicability of UML models for proper modeling as well as for validation, verification, simulation and code generation need to be filled. To enable domain-specific specification, in form of profiles UML is enhanced by comprehensive sets of constructs addressing the aspects real time, distribution and safety characteristic for embedded control systems. Corresponding models should automatically be translated to several other model notations. Here, a UML profile for simulation models is defined, which is process-oriented and based on extensions of UML oriented at PEARL for distributed systems and real-time extensions of UML statecharts which enable to simulate real-time constraints. This UML profile is expected to automatically translate UML models into simulation models described as XML documents, utilising existing model analysis tools for quantitative system analysis without the need for individual complex and expensive formal modeling.