Using an architecture description language for quantitative analysis of real-time systems

ABSTRACT

An architecture description language (ADL) specifies the structure of an overall system as an assembly of interacting components. ADLs can serve as input to a variety of development tools. We outline the Avionics Architecture Description Language, an emerging SAE standard for describing the architectures of hard real-time, safety-critical embedded computer systems. We describe a suite of tools that perform a set of verification, modeling and analysis, and implementation activities given an AADL specification. We summarize a study that applied these technologies using data about a complex avionics system, identifying and discussing some of the issues raised by this exercise.

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INDEX TERMS

Keywords:
embedded, fault-tolerant, real-time, software architecture