Consistency of UML class, object and statechart diagrams using ontology reasoners

TL;DR

This paper introduces an automatic method to analyze the consistency of UML models by translating them into OWL 2 and using ontology reasoners, facilitating validation without requiring UML or OWL expertise.

Contribution

It presents a novel translation approach from UML to OWL 2 and a tool chain that automates consistency analysis using ontology reasoners.

Findings

The approach successfully detects inconsistencies in UML models.

The tool chain is compatible with standard UML modeling tools.

The method is fully automatic and user-friendly.

Abstract

We propose an automatic approach to analyze the consistency and satisfiability of Unified Modeling Language UML models containing multiple class, object and statechart diagrams using logic reasoners for the Web Ontology Language OWL 2. We describe how to translate UML models in OWL 2 and we present a tool chain implementing this translation that can be used with any standard compliant UML modeling tool. The proposed approach is limited in scope, but is fully automatic and does not require any expertise about OWL 2 and its reasoners from the designer.