Towards an Approach to Pattern-based Domain-Specific Requirements Engineering

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel pattern-based domain-specific requirements engineering approach that integrates domain knowledge into requirements specification and quality assurance, demonstrated through a UAV flight controller case study.

Contribution

The paper proposes a new domain-specific requirements engineering method that incorporates domain knowledge and supports automated quality checks, advancing pattern-based requirements engineering.

Findings

Successful integration of domain knowledge into requirements specification.

Automated requirements quality assurance demonstrated with UAV flight controllers.

Proof of concept tool supports system verification tasks.

Abstract

Requirements specification patterns have received much attention as they promise to guide the structured specification of natural language requirements. By using them, the intention is to reduce quality problems related to requirements artifacts. Patterns may need to vary in their syntax (e.g. domain details/ parameter incorporation) and semantics according to the particularities of the application domain. However, pattern-based approaches, such as EARS, are designed domain-independently to facilitate their wide adoption across several domains. Little is yet known about how to adopt the principle idea of pattern-based requirements engineering to cover domain-specificity in requirements engineering and, ideally, integrate requirements engineering activities into quality assurance tasks. In this paper, we propose the Pattern-based Domain-specific Requirements Engineering Approach for the specification of functional and performance requirements in a holistic manner. This approach emerges from an academia-industry collaboration and is our first attempt to frame an approach which allows for analyzing domain knowledge and incorporating it into the requirements engineering process enabling automated checks for requirements quality assurance and computer-aided support for system verification. Our contribution is two-fold: First, we present a solution to pattern-based domain-specific requirements engineering and its exemplary integration into quality assurance techniques. Second, we showcase a proof of concept using a tool implementation for the domain of flight controllers for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. Both shall allow us to outline next steps in our research agenda and foster discussions in this direction.