Use of Model Transformation for the Formal Analysis of Railway Interlocking Models

This paper on Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) is from the proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Computer System Design and Operation in Railways and Other Transit Systems, held in Beijing, China, in 2010. In MDE, which is based on model transformation, the system model is specified using a modeling language, such as UML (Unified Modelling Language) or a DSL (Domain-Specific Language). Once a model is specified, executable code for a computing platform can be automatically generated by means of model transformation (code generation). MDE also enables the formal verification of system properties. The authors describe how MDE can be used in the context of safety-critical systems, such as railway interlockings, in which the system model can be translated to a formal (mathematical) language more amendable to rigorous analysis. They paper presents a model transformation that takes a railway interlocking model (specified in Executable UML (xUML)) as input and outputs a formal model that can be mathematically analysed. This can potentially bridge the gap between well-known modeling languages (such as xUML) and formal languages, thus facilitating the systematic development of safety-critical systems in terms of MDE. The authors use a small xUML railway interlocking model to illustrate the proposed method.