Risc Colloquium

The design of critical embedded systems necessitates a thorough quality assurance process to guarantee that the target software meets all its requirements for safe operation. Therefore, development and verification tools used for designing such systems also need to undergo a rigorous qualification process to obtain certification credit.

Model-driven engineering techniques have become increasingly popular in these areas to enhance the development process by early model analysis and subsequent code generation. Design intelligence to pinpoint conceptual design flaws already in the models by precise analysis driven by hidden formal methods is frequently enabled by automated model transformations. Model transformations can also improve architecture design with the guided synthesis of configuration tables, communication layers, interfaces, etc.

In my talk, I will overview (1) recent advances in the foundations of model transformations, (2) innovative applications of model transformation techniques for developing critical embedded systems, and (3) the transformation-driven design and integration of software tools used in critical systems development.

Moreover, I will discuss some industrial cases of successfully applying models and model transformation techniques in the automotive and avionics domain, which prove that design intelligence enabled by model-driven techniques has significant impact on the productivity and quality of the final product as engineers can detect design flaws earlier.