Section 2 - R&D innovation and technical excellence

Section 2 - R&D innovation and technical excellence

2.1 Concept and objectives

Describe in detail the overall objectives as well as the underpinning S&T objectives. The objectives should be those to be achieved within the project, not through subsequent development. They should be stated in a measurable and verifiable form.

The main goal of DECISIVE is to develop a methodology and tool support for evolutionary development of complex embedded systems using a model-based design flow. Based on modelling languages that support both system design and analysis we will develop technology for annotation of system models with the results from verification and validation (V&V) activities and the empirical knowledge of the properties of the system and its components. These annotations will be used to guide decisions both on product-management level and for technical development during systems evolution, the annotation are also useful artefacts to support certification and qualification of safety related functions.

The motivation for the project is that contemporary technologies for model-based engineering do not account for the fact that most systems are developed in an evolutionary fashion. Contemporary technology lack functionality and needs improvements in the following aspects:

1. 
   Methods to systematically and homogenously associate knowledge of system properties obtained during various V&V activities and from deployed systems to the models used at various design stages and check their consistency. That is, current modelling techniques focus on describing what we want the system to do (as-specified), but not what it actually does (as-is).
   
2. 
   Low- and non-intrusive monitoring methodologies with architecture independent APIs for system analysis, with the purpose both to extract run-time properties to be back-propagated to the model and to monitor and validate the system functionality.
   
3. 
   Efficient and effective model and code management. Understanding and modification of models is often hindered by ad-hoc modelling techniques, bulky graphical presentations, non-intuitive model editors, and lack of adequate two-way synchronization between models and code.
   
4. 
   Support for decision making based on quantitative and qualitative information about the product. That is, product management and architects have no effective tools or models to aid steering the product requirement and design during development projects and between releases.
   

Extend existing modelling languages to support annotation of system properties obtained during various V&V-activities (such as analysis, simulation, testing, and safety certification). These extensions will support product-line variability and versioning to fit the evolutionary system development process.

The modelling tools will be associated to V&V techniques to support consistency checking of back-annotations and the analysis and simulation of models at various abstraction levels, e.g., where part of the system exists in its final form and part of the system only exist as abstract models. This will allow a “what-if” analysis to an early-stage evaluation of the impact of proposed evolutionary changes with respect to, quality attributes (e.g., safety).

Develop model-to-model transformations and APIs that allow tracing of system properties through design stages and compilation phases. Also, transformations and APIs that allow mapping V&V-results back to the model needs to be provided.

Ensure availability of information from early verification and validation techniques, allowing business and architectural decisions to be based on solid technical data throughout the development process. Methods for defining and visualizing data from models and prototypes will improve the process for decision makers.

Improve model-editing capabilities and easy model understanding. In evolutionary system development, handovers between teams will be significantly improved by automated generation of standardized model-views and semi-automated editing preventing errors from being introduced into the model. Also, in the context of model-to-model transformations, and code-to model synchronization, automated model-views will improve readability.

Implement resource-efficient, non-intrusive, and deterministic monitoring techniques to extract properties from executing systems during both test and deployment.

Project results

The project will provide evolutionary model based development support that lead to the improvement of the development of products with the following characteristics:

The evolutionary model based approach addresses industrial applicability that involves a different way of working the knowledge and experience of people and the present day incomplete tooling.