A Tool Bus Extension for Model-Driven Development

The “tool bus” approach is a concept where methods of exchange enable a set of analysis tools (i.e. solvers/analyzers) to readily communicate results and exchange model information. The approach becomes extremely powerful when common models are used so that a unified model of the system is maintained. Views can then be constructed and automatically extracted from the model, sent to the relevant solver over the tool bus. Once the results are obtained by the solver, they are sent back over the tool bus and used to annotate the common model with additional information. WWTG extends its EDICT tool by developing the tool bus extension. EDICT leverages the AADL Open Source AADL Tool Environment (OSATE) based on Eclipse, an open environment for the integration of tool suites. The AADL architectural view of the system provides a common reference for the organization of the system properties. With extensions to AADL, users of the language and corresponding tools are afforded with the best of the architectural, model, and simulation worlds. By leveraging the organizational properties of AADL, model based information is kept in a normalized form, and model based descriptions are coupled into the AADL model at the appropriate levels of system abstraction.