A Systematic Identification of Formal and Semi-formalLanguages and Techniques for Software-intensiveSystems-of-Systems Requirements Modeling

TL;DR

This paper provides a comprehensive landscape of formal and semi-formal requirements modeling approaches for Software-intensive Systems-of-Systems, highlighting their applications, characteristics, and the importance of supporting tools for quality assurance.

Contribution

It systematically maps and categorizes existing formal and semi-formal modeling techniques for SoS requirements, revealing their domains and tool support considerations.

Findings

Formal approaches like finite state machines are used in safety-critical parts.

Semi-formal approaches such as UML and i* address non-critical parts.

Most approaches are tested in safety-critical domains.

Abstract

Software-intensive Systems-of-Systems (SoS) refer to an arrangement of managerially and operationally independent systems(i.e., constituent systems), which work collaboratively towards the achievement of global missions. Because some SoS are developed for critical domains, such as healthcare and transportation, there is an increasing need to attain higher quality levels, which often justifies additional costs that can be incurred by adopting formal and semi-formal approaches (i.e., languages and techniques) for modeling requirements. Various approaches have been employed, but a detailed landscape is still missing, and it is not well known whether they are appropriate for addressing the inherent characteristics of SoS. The main contribution of this article is to present this landscape by reporting on the state of the art in SoS requirements modeling. This landscape was built by means of a systematic mapping and shows formal and semi-formal approaches grouped from model-based to property-oriented ones. Most of them have been tested in safety-critical domains, where formal approaches such as finite state machines are aimed at critical system parts, while semi-formal approaches (e.g., UML and i*) address non-critical parts. Although formal and semi-formal modeling is an essential activity, the quality of SoS requirements does not rely solely on which formalism is used, but also on the availability of supporting tools/mechanisms that enable, for instance, requirements verification along the SoS lifecycle