Runtime observable and adaptable UML state machines: [email protected] approach

An embedded system is a self-contained system that incorporates elements of control logic and real-world interaction. UML State Machines constitute a powerful formalism to model the behaviour of these types of systems. In current industrial environments, the software of these embedded systems have to cope with the increasing complexity and robustness requirements at runtime. One way to manage these requirements is having the software component's behaviour model available at runtime ([email protected]). Thus, it is possible to enhance the safety of the software component by enabling verification and adaptation at runtime. In this paper, we present a model-driven approach to generate software components (namely RESCO framework), which are able both to provide their internal information in model terms at runtime and adapt their behaviour automatically when an error or an unexpected situation is detected. The aforementioned runtime introspection and adaptation abilities are added automatically to the software component and it does not require the developer make any extra effort. The solution has been tested in the design and implementation of an industrial Burner controller. Results indicate that the software components generated by the presented solution provides introspection at runtime. Thanks to this introspection ability at runtime, the software components are able to adapt automatically from their normal-mode behaviour to a safe-mode behaviour which was defined to be used in erroneous or unexpected situations at runtime. Therefore, it is possible to enhance the safety of the systems consisting of these software components.