Abstract
A framework for handling central aspects of Real time Systems in UML-based notations, and in UML-based system development. This will influence standardization and allow European UMLbased tool providers to have a larger impact.

Participants

The full list of participants is available here.

Baseline

Since the adoption of the UML standard and its new advanced release UML2, this modeling language has been used for development of a large number of time-critical and resourcecritical systems. Based on this experience, a consensus has emerged that, while a useful tool, UML is lacking in some key areas that are of particular concern to real-time and embedded system designers and developers. In particular, it was noticed that first the lack of quantifiable notions of time and resources was an impediment to its broader use in the real-time and embedded domain. Second, the need for rigorous semantics definition is also a mandatory requirement for a widespread usage of the UML for RT/E systems development. And third, specific constructs were required to build models using artifacts related the real-time operating system level such as task and semaphore.

Fortunately, and contrary to an often expressed opinion, it was discovered that UML had all the requisite mechanisms for addressing these issues, in particular through its extensibility facilities. This made the job much easier, since it was unnecessary to add new fundamental
modeling concepts to UML – so-called “heavyweight” extensions. Consequently, the job consisted in defining a standard way of using these capabilities to represent concepts and practices from the real-time and embedded domain.

Hence, this specification of a UML™ profile adds capabilities in one hand for modeling Real Time and Embedded Systems (RTES), and in other hand for analyzing schedulability and performance properties of UML specifications. This new profile is intended to replace the existing UML Profile for Schedulability, Performance and Time [UML profile for Schedulability,
Performance, and Time, version 1.1., formal/05-01-02, 2005]. This extension, called the Marte profile, should address specification, design, and verification stages of the development cycle of RTES. It wants to address the two branches of the V cycle, i.e. modeling and validation&
verification. Modeling capabilities have to ensure both hardware and software aspects of RTES in order to improve communication/exchange between developers. It has also to foster the construction of models that may be used to make quantitative analysis regarding hardware and
software characteristics. Finally, it should enable interoperability between developments tools used all along the development process.

Problem Tackled in Year 2

Continue the year1 work in order to develop a UML-based proposal defining model constructs for modelling and analysising of real-time and embedded systems. Special focus is put on representing resources, timing, RT/E qualities of service, communication modes, execution
modes, component model.

Within this year 2, we also continued to review and suggest changes to the Open Management Group (OMG - responsible for defining the UML standard) by providing inputs on standardization of UML profiles specific to real-time systems: the UML profile for MARTE.

The second year of this activity has been also time to start experiments of the Marte standard through realizations of case studie and connections with analysis tools such as schedulablity analysis tools.

Previous Work

The first year of this activity has been dedicated to firstly influence on the writing of the request for proposal (RFP) of the new UML profile for real-time and embedded systems. This RFP expresses all the requirements the new standard will have to satisfy. The RFP, document
referenced at omg web server as realtime/05-02-06 (UML Profile for Modeling and Analysis of Real-Time and Embedded systems (MARTE) RFP)) has been voted in the context of the Realtime, Embedded, and Specialized Systems (RTESS) Platform Task Force in February 2005:
UML Profile for Modeling and Analysis of Real-Time and Embedded systems (MARTE) RFP, realtime/05-02-06.

Within the second half year period, the job consisted in both following action (main part of this work has been performed within the French CARROLL-Protes project):

• To setup an OMG submitter team in order to answer to the RFP. The team that has been organized is called the ProMARTE team: www.promarte.org. This team consists of the main companies (end users and toolprovider) involved in this aaspect at the OMG. It is composed of: Artisan, Carlton university, CEA, IBM, I-Logix, INRIA, Looked-Martin, Thales, Tri-Pacific.
• To write the intial submission of the ProMARTE team that has been delivered in Novembre 2005: Joint UML Profile for MARTE Initial Submission, realtime/05-11-01.

Within this first year, in the context of the Omega project, Verimag aimed at the definition of an UML profile appropriate for real-time embedded systems based on the existing SPT profile. The extension done in Omega introduces a notion of "observer" and emphasizes the importance of capturing the relevant events which make reference to the system at execution and is used to capture its dynamic properties.

Current Results

A consolidated architecture for the Marte profile

The Marte profile architecture model consists of three main packages:

• The Time and Concurrent Resource Modeling package (TCRM); it defines basic model constructs for time and resource, especially concurrent resources. This foundational concepts are then refined in both following package in order to fit with both modeling and analyzing
  concerns.
• The RealTime and Embedded application Modeling package (RTEAM); it enables modeling of RT/E application. It concerns mainly defining in one hand high-level model constructs to depict real-time and embedded features of application, and in other hand to enable the description of execution platforms, software as well as hardware.
• The RealTime and Embedded application Analysis; it provides a generic support for analyzing annotated models. This generic framework is also refined in order to cope with schedulability and performance analysis. It is also expected that the generic framework for analysis will be specialized/extended to support other kind of quantitative analysis, such as power consumption, memory use or reliability.

Keynotes, Workshops, Tutorials

Workshop: MARTES 2005 - Modelling and Analysis of Real Time and Embedded Systems, MoDELS/UML 2005, Int. Conf. on Model Driven Engineering Languages and Systems, Montego Bay, Jamaica, Oct. 4, 2005.
Verimag and CEA have been the initiators of this workshop on model-driven development and real-time and embedded systems as a follow-up event on the successful workshop series on Real time embedded systems SIVOES and SVERTS. MARTES has been hold in October 2005 as a satellite event of the MODELS conference. The workshop attracted a number of interesting submissions and participants. The results of the workshop, as well as 2 best papers
have been published in an LNCS volume.

Presently, we are actively preparing the second edition, to be held on October 2 or 3, 2006 in Genova, Italy in conjunction with the 9th International Conference on Model Driven Engineering
Languages and Systems, MoDELS/UML 2006.
View it online!

Summer school: MDD for Distributed Real Time Embedded Systems, Brest, France – September 4-8, 2006
This summer school was co-organized by CEA. It is the third edition of a series of summer school which focuses on model-driven related issues in the context of real-time and embedded systems development. The main goal of this summer school series is to provide participants with the most up-to-date information needed to understand and apply MDE approaches to the development of distributed, real-time and embedded systems. For that purpose, we have gathered experts from a variety of research labs and industries to give seminars that provide insights into the ongoing research works and practical applications related to MDE for DRES
View it online!

Tutorial: Status and perspectives of the UML profile for Marte
MDD for Distributed Real Time Embedded Systems Summer School, Brest, France – September 4-8, 2006.
Sébastien Gérard gave this tutorial on Marte. The current architecture of th new OMG standard for real-time and embedded systems has been presented and some specific technical focuses has been done: the non-functional property framework, the sub-profile for modelling software execution resources and the subprofile for model-based schedulability analysis.
View it online!

Tutorial: UML for Real Time Systems Artist Summerschool on Component & Modelling, Testing & Verification, and Statical Analysis of Embedded Systems, Nässlingen, Sweden, September 29 to October 2, 2005
Sébastien Gérard gave this tutorial on UML for real-time systems. The talk has been focused on native concepts of UYML2 for real-time and on its extenssions (profiles) specically dedicated to real-time modelling and analysis.
View it online!

 

 

ARTIST2 Participants: Expertise and Roles

• Dr. Susanne Graf – VERIMAG (Fr)
  Areas of his team’s expertise: modelling of real-time components.
• Pr. Jean-Marc Jezequel – INRIA (Fr)
  Areas of his team’s expertise: UML Meta-model.
• Dr. Julio Medina - Cantabria University (Sp)
  Areas of his team’s expertise: model-based schedulability analysis.
• Dr. Sébastien Gérard – CEA (Fr)
  Areas of his team’s expertise: standard modelling and RT/E domains.

Affiliated Participants: Expertise and Roles

• Pr. Ivica Crnkovic – MdH
  Areas of his team’s expertise: component models.
• Dr. Leader: Stefan van Baelen - K.U. Leuven (Be)
  Areas of his team’s expertise: QoS specification.
• Dr. Bernhard Josko – OFFIS (Ge)
  Areas of his team’s expertise: real-time UML.
• Dominique Potier – Thalès Research and Technology (Fr)
  Areas of his team’s expertise: standardization and case study from the aerospace or telecommunication domain.
• Dr. Matthias Grochtmann – DaimlerChrysler (Ge)
  Areas of his team’s expertise: specification, design and implementation of automotive
  systems.

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