This paper presents and evaluates the Boundary Diagram Tool for change impact analysis of large Simulink designs of embedded systems. In our previous work, we developed the Reach/Coreach Tool for model slicing within a single Simulink model. The current work extends the Reach/Coreach Tool to trace the impact of model changes through multiple models comprising an embedded system, including network interfaces. The change impact analysis results are represented using various diagrams motivated by industrial needs. Several techniques are used to improve understanding of impact analyses of large industrial systems. The tool has been integrated into the software development process of a large automotive OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) to support the following activities: change request analysis and evaluation, implementation, verification and integration. The tool also aids impact analyses required for compliance with functional safety standards. The tool’s effectiveness has been demonstrated on production-scale models.

In the Matlab Simulink environment, systems can be modelled using Simulink block diagrams and Stateflow state charts. While stateful logic is more naturally modelled using Stateflow, in practice complex block diagrams are often used instead, resulting in models that are hard to understand and maintain. In order to improve the maintainability and understandability of large industrial models, this paper presents a strategy for refactoring Simulink block diagrams implementing stateful logic into functionally equivalent Stateflow state charts that more naturally represent the intended behaviour. To bridge the gap between the syntax of block diagrams and state charts, Mealy machines represented by tabular expressions are used as an intermediate representation. The compositional language of block diagrams is used to combine tables modelling individual blocks into a table for the entire block diagram which describes the high level state machine encoded in the Simulink subsystem. A prototype tool that performs the translation from Simulink to Stateflow automatically is discussed.

Studies of code repositories have long been used to understand the use of programming languages and to provide insight into how they should evolve. Such studies can highlight features that are rarely used and can safely be removed to simplify the language. Conversely, combinations of features that are frequently used together can be identified and possibly replaced with new features to improve the user experience. Unfortunately, this kind of research has not been as popular in Model Driven Development (MDD). More specifically, using repositories of model transformations (in any language) to understand how the features of these languages are used has not been investigated much, despite its potential benefits. In this paper, we study the use of the ATL model transformation language in an ATL transformation repository. We identify three research questions aimed at providing insight into how ATL's features are actually used. Using the TXL source transformation language, we implement a parser-based analyzer to extract information from the ATL Zoo. We use this information to answer these research questions and provide additional observations based on manual inspection of ATL artifacts.

In Model Driven Engineering (MDE), models are first-class citizens, and model transformation is MDE's "heart and soul". Since model transformations are executed for a family of conforming models, their validity becomes a crucial issue. This paper proposes to explore the question of the formal verification of model transformation properties through a tri-dimensional approach: the transformation involved, the properties of interest addressed, and the formal verification techniques used to establish the properties. This work allows a better understanding of the expected properties for a particular transformation, and facilitates the identification of the suitable tools and techniques for enabling their verification.