Rolls-Royce Control Systems supplies engine control and monitoring systems for aviation applications, and is required to design, certify, and deliver these to the highest level of safety assurance. To allow Rolls-Royce to develop safe and robust systems, which continue to increase in complexity, model-based techniques are now a critical part of the software development process. In this paper, we discuss the experiences, challenges and lessons learnt when developing a bespoke domain-specific modelling workbench based on open-source modelling technologies including the Eclipse Modelling Framework (EMF), Xtext, Sirius and Epsilon. This modelling workbench will be used to architect and integrate the software for all future Rolls-Royce engine control and monitoring systems.

Open-source model management frameworks such as OCL and ATL tend to focus on manipulating models built atop the Eclipse Modelling Framework (EMF), a de facto standard for domain specific modelling. MATLAB Simulink is a widely used proprietary modelling framework for dynamic systems that is built atop an entirely different technical stack to EMF. To leverage the facilities of open-source model management frameworks with Simulink models, these can be transformed into an EMF-compatible representation. Downsides of this approach include the synchronisation of the native Simulink model and its EMF representation as they evolve; the completeness of the EMF representation, and the transformation cost which can be crippling for large Simulink models. We propose an alternative approach to bridge Simulink models with open-source model management frameworks that uses an "on-the-fly" translation of model management constructs into MATLAB statements. Our approach does not require an EMF representation and can mitigate the cost of the upfront transformation on large models. To evaluate both approaches we measure the performance of a model validation process with Epsilon (a model management framework) on a sample of large Simulink models available on GitHub. Our previous results suggest that, with our approach, the total validation time can be reduced by up to 80%. In this paper, we expand our approach to support the management of Simulink requirements and dictionaries, and we improve the approach to perform queries on collections of model elements more efficiently. We demonstrate the use of the Simulink requirements and dictionaries with a case study and we evaluate the optimisations on collection queries with an experiment that compares the performance of a set of queries on models with different sizes. Our results suggest an improvement by up to 99% on some queries.

Abstract UML profiles offer an intuitive way for developers to build domain-specific modelling languages by reusing and extending UML concepts. Eclipse Papyrus is a powerful open-source UML modelling tool which supports UML profiling. However, with power comes complexity, implementing non-trivial UML profiles and their supporting editors in Papyrus typically requires the developers to handcraft and maintain a number of interconnected models through a loosely guided, labour-intensive and error-prone process. We demonstrate how metamodel annotations and model transformation techniques can help manage the complexity of Papyrus in the creation of UML profiles and their supporting editors. We presentJorvik, an open-source tool that implements the proposed approach. We illustrate its functionality with examples, and we evaluate our approach by comparing it against manual UML profile specification and editor implementation using a non-trivial enterprise modelling language (Archimate) as a case study. We also perform a user study in which developers are asked to produce identical editors using both Papyrus andJorvikdemonstrating the substantial productivity and maintainability benefits thatJorvikdelivers.

While the majority of research on Model-Based Software Engineering revolves around open-source modelling frameworks such as the Eclipse Modelling Framework, the use of commercial and closed-source modelling tools such as RSA, Rhapsody, MagicDraw and Enterprise Architect appears to be the norm in industry at present. This technical gap can prohibit industrial users from reaping the benefits of state-of-the-art research-based tools in their practice. In this paper, we discuss an attempt to bridge a proprietary UML modelling tool (PTC Integrity Modeller), which is used for model-based development of safety-critical systems at Rolls-Royce, with an open-source family of languages for automated model management (Epsilon). We present the architecture of our solution, the challenges we encountered in developing it, and a performance comparison against the tool’s built-in scripting interface. In addition, we use the bridge in a real-world industrial case study that involves the coordination with other bridges between proprietary tools and Epsilon.

MATLAB/Simulink is a tool for dynamic system modelling widely used across industries such as aerospace and automotive. Model management languages such as OCL, ATL and the languages of the Epsilon platform enable the validation, model-to-model, model-to-text transformation of models but tend to focus on the Eclipse Modelling Framework (EMF), a de facto standard for domain specific modelling. As Simulink models are built on an entirely different technical stack, the current solution to manipulate them using such languages requires their transformation into an EMF-compatible representation. This approach is expensive as (a) the cost of the transformation can be crippling for large models, (b) it requires the synchronisation of the native Simulink model and its EMF counterpart, and (c) the EMF-representation may be an incomplete copy of the model potentially hampering model management operations. In this paper we propose an alternative approach that uses the MATLAB API to bridge Simulink models with existing model management languages that relies on the "on-the-fly" translation of model management language constructs into MATLAB/Simulink commands. Our approach not only eliminates the cost of the transformation and of the co-evolution of the EMF-compatible representation but also enables full access to all the aspects of Simulink models. We evaluate the performance of both approaches using a set of model validation constraints executed on a sample of the largest Simulink models available on GitHub. Our evaluation suggests that the on-the-fly translation approach can reduce the model validation time by up to 80%.

Metamodels, like any other software artifacts evolve throughout time. As a consequence, all dependent artifacts may need to be co-evolved accordingly, including model transformations. Transformations are a key component of an automated development solution, thus it is crucial to automate their co-evolution while guaranteeing that they remain correct. However, there is little known about what aspects and characteristics must be automated in a manual co-evolution and in particular how it should be correctly automated. Few approaches exist, but it is not clear to what extent those approaches are able to automate the manual co-evolution of model transformations. In this paper, we report on an exploratory experiment we conducted to better understand the co-evolution of transformations in practice and to assess the usefulness of the current existing techniques. 15 participants were involved in our experiment to monitor how they co-evolve transformation rules in response to metamodel evolution. Our analysis results show that while existing approaches support the user with an automatic impact analysis, they do not consider proposing a very large spectrum of alternative resolutions. Among the 14 resolutions that occurred in our experiment, on average only 4 (up to 6) were supported by the existing approaches.

While the majority of research on Model-Based Software Engineering revolves around open-source modelling frameworks such as EMF, the use of commercial and closed-source modelling tools such as RSA, Rhapsody, MagicDraw and PTC Integrity Modeller appears to be the norm in industry at present. This technical gap can prohibit industrial users from reaping the benefits of state-of-the-art research-based tools in their practice. In this paper, we discuss an attempt to bridge a proprietary UML modelling tool (PTC Integrity Modeller), which is used for model-based development of safety-critical systems at Rolls-Royce, with an open-source family of languages for automated model management (Epsilon). We present the architecture of our solution, the challenges we encountered in developing it, and a performance comparison against the tool's built-in scripting interface.

The use of reconfigurable platforms for embedded system design leverages product line engineering (PLE), in which the development of products starts from a set of core assets (the platform) rather than the development of individual products from zero. Two major activities of PLE are domain engineering (i.e., platform development) and product engineering (i.e., product customization) reusing the core assets. Virtual prototyping in PLE allows rapid validation of both the platform and individual products with greater benefits in development costs, time to market and quality. However, since virtual prototypes (VP) are implemented in low-level languages, if platform development and product engineering are done at this level, productivity is negatively affected. A commonly-accepted solution for closing this productivity gap is to raise the level of abstraction in the whole design process and to automate the implementation of VPs from the high-level descriptions. In this paper, we present the HiLeS2 Framework, which is based on Model Driven Software Product Lines (MD-SPL) concepts. HiLeS2 framework provides an environment for domain and product engineering, automated construction of VPs and creation of product line integrated development environments.