A Technique to Architect Real-time Embedded Systems with SysML and UML through Multiple Views

Describing the architecture of real-time systems by means of semi-formal languages has been often considered in the literature. However, the most common approach is to propose multiple modeling languages in an orthogonal manner, i.e., the models are used in separate phases, in a totally independent way. This situation is not always possible, and the assumption in this paper is to propose a technique in which diagrams from two modeling languages are integrated. In this paper, UML and SysML are used together. Thus, the proposed technique is capable of modeling both software and system architectural elements, by satisfying the following modeling criteria: support to model components and connectors, both graphical and textual syntax, modeling non-functional requirements, design of structural view of software using UML classes, represent hardware elements in the architecture, and to describe traceability between requirements. A case study on a real-time automotive embedded system is presented to illustrate the technique.