Automated Scenario-Based Evaluation of Embedded Software and System Architectures

Architecture scenarios are widely used to systematize the elicitation of architecture significant requirements and to evaluate the appropriateness of architecture decisions. Due to the lack of tool support, architects perform this evaluation manually whenever an architecture changes. In this paper, we present a scenario modeling, and evaluation approach for embedded systems that enables automated evaluation of architecture concepts with respect to scenarios. Our approach utilizes function nets contained in candidate architectures to derive main event chains of the system under development. Architecture scenarios are executed on these function nets. A novel scenario modeling approach is used to enable execution on function nets that neither provides a detailed design nor an implementation for functions. We discuss the applicability of our approach in context of the design of a control system for an aluminum cold-rolling mill. This discussion covers both functional and non-functional requirements formulated as architecture scenarios.