Enhanced decoupling of components in intelligent realtime interactive systems using ontologies

We introduce a technique to support decoupling in component-based, modular software architectures as a means to enhance nonfunctional requirements, i.e., to increase reusability, portability, and adaptability. The core idea utilizes a semantic description of interfaces and component interplay in the area of Intelligent Real-time Interactive Systems (IRIS). Semantic descriptions are encoded as OWL-based models, which build a Knowledge Representation Layer (KRL) of relevant interface constructs and component features. These models are automatically transformed into programming language code of a given target language. The result of that transformation forms a semantically grounded database of relevant system aspects that programmers can use to develop their application. Examples, taken from an application that was developed with the Simulator X framework, illustrate the different aspects of the proposed method and demonstrate its practicability.