A Workflow for Automatic Code Generation of Safety Mechanisms via Model-Driven Development

Abstract

Due to the increasing size and complexity of embedded systems, software quality is gaining importance in such systems. This is especially true in safety-critical systems, where failure may lead to serious harm for humans or the environment. Model-Driven Development (MDD) techniques, such as model representation with semi-formal design languages and automatic code generation from such models may increase software quality and developer productivity. This paper introduces a workflow for automatically generating safety mechanisms from model representations. In summary, safety mechanisms are specified in class diagrams of the Unified Modeling Language (UML) via stereotypes alongside the remainder of the application. In a subsequent step, these model representations are used to perform model-to-model transformations. The resulting model contains all the information required to automatically generate source code for the application, including the specified safety mechanisms. Then, common MDD tools may be used to generate this productive source code. We demonstrate the application of our workflow by applying it to the automatic code generation of timing constraint monitoring at runtime. © 2021, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.