Integrating the synchronous paradigm into UML: Application to control-dominated systems

Abstract

The Synchronous Paradigm proposes an abstract model integrating concurrency and communication, deterministic thus simple, semantically well-founded thus suitable to formal analysis, producing safe and efficient code. However combining this model with the object-oriented approach is still challenging. This paper explores how an UML-based methodology can be set up, making it possible to use the Synchronous Paradigm in combination with other (more classical) techniques to develop control-dominated systems. It addresses the issue of representing behavior in a semantically sound way using the synchronous models, of relating behavior and structure, and of mixing synchronous and asynchronous behavior though an extended notion of (ROOM-like) "capsules", the synchronous islets. We also briefly mention the extensions and modifications in the UML meta-model necessary to support this methodology. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2002.