Virtual Execution of Real Time Software Architecture Models 2015-01-2530
The Architecture Analysis and Design Language (AADL) SAE standard [1] defines a default runtime semantic for software intensive real time systems. This includes support for multi tasking, network distributed architectures and Time and Space Partitioning systems (TSP).
The core definition of the language is extended by the Behavior Annex that enables a more precise specification of the application real-time behavior. This allows for the definition of functional pseudo-code for AADL threads and subprograms. It becomes thus possible to describe for instance critical sections or conditional computation depending on input port values while remaining in the scope of the AADL standard.
Such a consistent behavioral model can be used for various performance analyses like scheduling and simulation in the early phases of the software development process of real-time critical systems.
The AADL Inspector tool is a model analysis framework that can load real-time software architectural models such as native AADL, UML/MARTE or a combination of heterogeneous input models, transform them if necessary into a pivot AADL model, and perform a virtual execution of the corresponding application.
AADL Inspector embeds the Marzhin multi-agent simulator that emulates an AADL runtime environment. This simulator can interact with the user thanks to predefined input and output devices, generates events that can be processed to display graphical traces in real time and animate 3D virtual reality models of the system [4].
The paper presents the technical choices that have been made to build this tool, and illustrate its use with a catalogue of typical case studies that show the benefit of the approach for the early validation of real time critical software intensive systems.
