A modeling pattern for layered system interfaces (original) (raw)

Modeling systems-of-systems interfaces with SysML

Space data systems are inherently complex. They are systems-of-systems, typically composed of spacecraft and mission operations systems (MOS) belonging to one (or more) organizations, and multi-mission communication assets belonging to other organizations. In many cases, the spacecraft contain subsystems and instruments provided by different organizations, and MOS systems that may be developed and operated by other organizations. The point of greatest leverage in system architecting is at the interfaces. We have developed a set of methods for using SysML to model systems-of-systems and their interfaces. This paper describes how to apply this method to space data systems at a variety of levels of detail, from abstract systems and subsystems down to hardware and software components, including the details of their interfaces and protocol designs.

Toward a Framework for Modeling Space Systems Architectures

There recently have been a number significant effort to develop powerful and extensible approaches for describing a general class of software intensive system architectures. These approaches are typically focused upon architectures of terrestrial systems and they range from generally applicable, but formalized, approaches like the System Engineering Modeling Language (SysML), to more focused approaches such as the Unified Modeling Language (UML) for RM-ODP (Reference Model for Open Distributed Processing).

A Principled Approach to the Specification of System Architectures for Space Missions

AIAA SPACE 2014 Conference and Exposition, 2015

Modern space systems are increasing in complexity and scale at an unprecedented pace. Consequently, innovative methods, processes, and tools are needed to cope with the increasing complexity of architecting these systems. A key systems challenge in practice is the ability to scale processes, methods, and tools used to architect complex space systems. Traditionally, the process for specifying space system architectures has largely relied on capturing the system architecture in informal descriptions that are often embedded within loosely coupled design documents and domain expertise. Such informal descriptions often lead to misunderstandings between design teams, ambiguous specifications, difficulty in maintaining consistency as the architecture evolves throughout the system development life cycle, and costly design iterations. Therefore, traditional methods are becoming increasingly inefficient to cope with ever-increasing system complexity. We apply the principles of component-based design and platform-based design to the development of the system architecture for a practical space system to demonstrate feasibility of our approach using SysML. Our results show that we are able to apply a systematic design method to manage system complexity, thus enabling effective data management, semantic coherence and traceability across different levels of abstraction in the design chain. Just as important, our approach enables interoperability among heterogeneous tools in a concurrent engineering model based design environment.

Tools for Describing the Reference Architecture for Space Data Systems

I NTROD UCTlO N lnteroperability of space data systems is of great concern to Space Agencies because sharing or reusing interoperable resources among multiple projects and multiple Agencies can reduce the cost of developing and operating space data systems. However, an on-going problem is that each space data system often has a different architecture and therefore the elements of one system cannot be easily used by other systems.

Three Concepts of System Architecture

1995

An architecture is a speci cation of the components of a system and the communication between them. Systems are constrained to conform to an architecture. An architecture should guarantee certain behavioral properties of a conforming system, i.e., one whose components are con gured according to the architecture. An architecture should also be useful in various ways during the process of building a system. This paper presents three alternative concepts of architecture: object connection architecture, interface c onnection architecture, and plug and socket architecture. W e describe di erent concepts of interface and connection that are needed for each of the three kinds of architecture, and di erent conformance requirements of each kind. Simple examples are used to compare the usefulness of each kind of architecture in guaranteeing properties of conforming systems, and in correctly modifying a conforming system. In comparing the three architecture concepts the principle of communication integrity becomes central, and two new architecture concepts, duality of sub-interfaces services and connections of dual services service c onnection, are introduced to de ne plug and socket architecture. We describe how these concepts reduce the complexity o f a r c hitecture de nitions, and can in many cases help guarantee that the components of a conforming system communicate correctly. The paper is presented independently of any particular formalism, since the concepts can be represented in widely di ering architecture de nition formalisms, varying from graphical languages to event-based simulation languages.

From High Level Application Specification to System-level Architecture Definition: Exploration, Design and Compilation

2007

In this paper we present a survey of a recently developed approach to specifying, modelling, exploring and designing parallel media-processing and wireless communications platforms and platform instances. More specifically, we take a closer look at the notions of Y-chart and Abstraction Pyramid. The methodology and approach that is reviewed in this paper uses these notions and focuses on the system level of abstraction on which the application and the architecture are co-existing in terms of a Model of Computation and a Model of Architecture, respectively. The relation between the two models is expressed in terms of a mapping layer with transformation methods that take a particular representation of (parts of) the application model and bind it to a particular representation of (parts of) the architecture model, and all this in such a way that: 1) modifications in either the application, or the architecture, or the mapping can be easily dealt with (for exploration purposes) , 2) the ...

Describing Layered Communication Architecture in SDL Markup Language

Using Specification and Description Language (SDL) as a formal language for specification of requirements for the complex, real-time and distributed systems involving many concurrent activities, we have come to the idea of making the language independent of platforms and operating systems which may use it. Shortly, we have developed markup version of the SDL language, and named it SDL Markup Language. It is an XML-based version of the SDL-PR (Phrase Representation), an SDL textual notation. We use the language to specify the complex communications protocols, which are used in wide range of layered architectures. We provide the specification from the INRES protocol in SDL-ML.

A multi-scale modeling approach for systems of systems architectures

ACM SIGAPP Applied Computing Review, 2017

Modeling correct software-intensive Systems of Systems architectures is a challenging research direction that can be mastered by providing appropriate modeling abstractions. For this purpose, we provide an iterative modeling solution for a multi-scale description of software architectures. We provide a visual notation extending the graphical UML notations to represent structural as well as behavioral features of software architectures. We define a step-wise iterative process from a coarse-grain to a fine-grain description. The intermediate iterations provide a description with a given abstraction that allow the validation to be conducted significantly while remaining tractable w.r.t. complexity. The iterative process involves both system-independent structural features ensuring the model correctness, and system-specific features related to the expected behavior of the modeled domain. We implement the resulting models describing structural and behavioral properties using the Eclipse ...