Aspect-Oriented Model-Driven Engineering for Embedded Systems Applied to Automation Systems

Automation and control systems include many “intelligent” automation devices, which are usually implemented as complex embedded systems. New methods and tools are demanded to cope with the increasing design complexity, while keeping the project on schedule. Proper handling of nonfunctional system requirements is a key factor during the design of industrial automation systems, since in some application domains they are as important as (sometimes, more important than) functional requirements. This paper presents a model-driven engineering approach, which combines Unified Modeling Language (UML) and aspect-oriented software development (AOSD) to design real-time and embedded automation systems. The proposed approach allows a smooth transition from the initial phases to implementation by using software tools, comprising the system specification and the automatic generation of source code. By combining UML with model-level aspects and a script-base code generation tool, it enables the use of AOSD during system design and implementation, even though the target platform does not natively support such concepts. Experimental results on using this approach to design real-world examples of automation systems are presented. The results indicate a positive impact on the design of automation systems. The encapsulation of nonfunctional requirements was improved, increasing the reuse of developed artifacts. Generated source code statistics indicate that the proposed approach can generated a fair amount of code per model element.