Model-Based Engineering of Widgets, User Applications and Servers Compliant with ARINC 661 Specification

The purpose of ARINC 661 specification [1] is to define interfaces to a Cockpit Display System (CDS) used in any types of aircraft installations. ARINC 661 provides precise information for communication protocol between application (called User Applications) and user interface components (called widgets) as well as precise information about the widgets themselves. However, in ARINC 661, no information is given about the behaviour of these widgets and about the behaviour of an application made up of a set of such widgets. This paper presents the results of the application of a formal description technique to the various elements of ARINC 661 specification within an industrial project. This formal description technique called Interactive Cooperative Objects defines in a precise and non-ambiguous way all the elements of ARINC 661 specification. The application of the formal description techniques is shown on an interactive application called MPIA (Multi Purpose Interactive Application). Within this application, we present how ICO are used for describing interactive widgets, User Applications and User Interface servers (in charge of interaction techniques). The emphasis is put on the model-based management of the feel of the applications allowing rapid prototyping of the external presentation and the interaction techniques. Lastly, we present the CASE (Computer Aided Software Engineering) tool supporting the formal description technique and its new extensions in order to deal with large scale applications as the ones targeted at by ARINC 661 specification.

[1]  Nabil Layaïda,et al.  An incremental XSLT transformation processor for XML document manipulation , 2002, WWW '02.

[2]  Edwin D. Reilly,et al.  Interactive system , 2003 .

[3]  Philippe Palanque,et al.  Tool Support for Interactive Prototyping of Safety-Critical Interactive Applications , 2006 .

[4]  U. Rembold,et al.  Predicate/transition nets in FMS control , 1991, Proceedings IECON '91: 1991 International Conference on Industrial Electronics, Control and Instrumentation.

[5]  Hartmann J. Genrich.  Predicate/transition nets , 1987 .

[6]  Philippe A. Palanque,et al.  A tool-supported design framework for safety critical interactive systems , 2003, Interact. Comput..

[7]  Jørgen Staunstrup.  Design Specification and Verification , 1997 .

[8]  G. E. Pfaff,et al.  User Interface Management Systems , 1985, Eurographic Seminars.

[9]  Grzegorz Rozenberg,et al.  High-level Petri Nets: Theory And Application , 1991 .

[10]  Gilbert Cockton,et al.  Design Principles for Interactive Software , 1997, IFIP — The International Federation for Information Processing.

[11]  Lance Sherry,et al.  When Does the MCDU Interface Work Well? Lessons Learned for the Design of New Flightdeck User-Interfaces , 2002 .

[12]  Giorgio De Michelis,et al.  Application and Theory of Petri Nets 1995 , 1995 .

[13]  Philippe A. Palanque,et al.  Petri net objects for the design, validation and prototyping of user-driven interfaces , 1990, INTERACT.

[14]  Philippe A. Palanque,et al.  A model-based approach for real-time embedded multimodal systems in military aircrafts , 2004, ICMI '04.

[15]  Stéphane Conversy,et al.  INDIGO: une architecture pour la conception d'applications graphiques interactives distribuées , 2005, IHM '05.

[16]  G. Pfaff.  User interface management systems : proceedings of the Workshop on User Interface Management Systems, held in Seeheim, FRG, November 1-3, 1983 , 1985 .

[17]  Olivier Beaudoux.  XML active transformation (eXAcT): transforming documents within interactive systems , 2005, DocEng '05.

[18]  Jean Vanderdonckt,et al.  A Review of XML-compliant User Interface Description Languages , 2003, DSV-IS.

[19]  Philippe A. Palanque,et al.  A Petri Net based Environment for the Design of Event-driven Interfaces , 1995, Application and Theory of Petri Nets.