A transformation approach for collaboration based requirement models

TL;DR

This paper presents a transformation approach that derives distributed system component behaviors as finite state machines from global UML activity diagrams, aiding distributed software engineering design.

Contribution

It introduces a systematic method and rules for transforming global UML requirements into component behaviors using ATL, enhancing distributed system design processes.

Findings

Transformation process successfully derives component behaviors from UML diagrams.

Approach formalizes rules for consistent behavior derivation.

Implementation demonstrates practical applicability in distributed system design.

Abstract

Distributed software engineering is widely recognized as a complex task. Among the inherent complexities is the process of obtaining a system design from its global requirement specification. This paper deals with such transformation process and suggests an approach to derive the behavior of a given system components, in the form of distributed Finite State Machines, from the global system requirements, in the form of an augmented UML Activity Diagrams notation. The process of the suggested approach is summarized in three steps: the definition of the appropriate source Meta-Model (requirements Meta-Model), the definition of the target Design Meta-Model and the definition of the rules to govern the transformation during the derivation process. The derivation process transforms the global system requirements described as UML diagram activities (extended with collaborations) to system roles behaviors represented as UML finite state machines. The approach is implemented using Atlas Transformation Language (ATL).