Supporting the consistent specification of scenarios across multiple abstraction levels

Abstract

[Context and motivation] In scenario-based requirements engineering for complex software-intensive systems, scenarios must be specified and kept consistent across several levels of abstraction such as system and component level. [Question/problem] Existing scenario-based approaches do not provide a systematic support for the transitions between different abstraction levels such as defining component scenarios based on the system scenarios and the system architecture or checking whether the component scenarios are consistent with the system scenarios. [Principal ideas/results] This paper presents a systematic approach for developing scenarios at multiple abstraction levels supported by automated consistency checks of scenarios across these abstraction levels. [Contribution] We have implemented the consistency check in a tool prototype and evaluated our approach by applying it to a (simplified) adaptive cruise control (ACC) system. © 2010 Springer-Verlag.