Thesis defense of Miren Illarramendi

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Thesis defense of Miren Illarramendi

THESIS

Thesis defense of Miren Illarramendi

Title of the thesis: Runtime Observable and Adaptable UML State Machine-Based Software Components Generation and Verification: Models@Run.Time Approach. Obtained the SOBRESALIENTE qualification and the CUM LAUDE mention.

2019·10·04

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  • Title of the thesis: Runtime Observable and Adaptable UML State Machine-Based Software Components Generation and Verification: Models@Run.Time Approach.
  • PhD programme: DOCTORATE PROGRAMME IN SOFTWARE & SYSTEM ENGINEERING
  • Thesis directors: Leire Etxeberria Elorza, Xabier Elkorobarrutia Letona
  • Court:
    • President: Dra. Clara Benac Earle (Universidad Politécnica de Madrid)
    • Vocal: Dr. Ansgar Radermacher (CEA LSEA Laboratory part of LIST/DILS)
    • Vocal: Dr. Juan Martin Perez (IKERLAN)
    • Vocal: Dra. Maria Elena Gomez Martinez (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid)
    • Secretary: Dra. Goiuria Sagardui  (Mondragon Unibertsitatea)

Abstract

Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs) are embedded computing systems in which computation interacts closely with the physical world through sensors and actuators. CPSs are used to control context aware systems. These types of systems are complex systems that will have different configurations and their control strategy can be configured depending the environmental data and current situation of the context. Therefore, in current industrial environments, the software of embedded and Cyber-Physical systems have to cope with increasing complexity, uncertain scenarios and safe requirements at runtime.

The UML State Machine is a powerful formalism to model the logical behaviour of these types of systems, and in Model Driven Engineering (MDE) we can generate code automatically from these models. MDE aims to overcome the complexity of software construction by allowing developers to work at the high-level models of software systems instead of low-level codes. However, determining and evaluating the runtime behaviour and performance of models of CPSs using commercial MDE tools is a challenging task. Such tools provide little support to observe at model-level the execution of the code generated from the model, and to collect the runtime information necessary to, for example, check whether defined safe properties are met or not. 

One solution to address these requirements is having the software components information in model terms at runtime (models@run.time). Work on models@run.time seeks to extend the applicability of models produced in MDE approaches to the runtime environment. Having the model at runtime is the first step towards the runtime verification. Runtime verification can be performed using the information of model elements (current state, event, next state,etc.)

This thesis aims at advancing the current practice on generating automatically Unified Modeling Language - State Machine (UML-SM) based software components that are able to provide their internal information in model terms at runtime. Regarding  automation, we propose a tool supported methodology to automatically generate these software components. As for runtime monitoring, verification and adaptation, we propose an externalized runtime module that is able to monitor and verify the correctness of the software components based on their internal status in model terms at component and system level. In addition, if an error is detected, the runtime adaptation module is activated and the safe adaptation process starts in the involved software components. All things considered, the overall safe level of the software components and CPSs is enhanced.