Transformational Specification of Complex Legacy Real-Time Systems via Semantic Anchoring

RTSSim is a framework for simulating models extracted from complex legacy real-time systems which are task-oriented, run on a single processor and are developed in C. Such RTSSim models describe functional and temporal behavior as well as the resource usage of the system. However, the semantics specification of RTSSim models remains a challenging problem indeed, especially with tractable complexity to obtain a formal model which can be analyzed for instance by a model checking tool. In this paper, we present an approach towards using semantic anchoring for the transformational specification of RTSSim models, by relying on units with well-defined operational semantics and tool support. Specifically, Timed Automata with Tasks (TAT) in TIMES is chosen as the semantic unit with the purpose of anchoring different behavioral concerns of RTSSim models in all aspects. In this respect, model transformations are conducted at the meta-model level allowing the original operational semantics of RTSSim models to be preserved, while at the same time it can be presented in TIMES models in terms of a network of TAT.