Transforming architectural descriptions for formal analysis

Model transformation is the process of automatically generating a target model from a source model according to a set of transformation rules. Automatic model transformation has the potential to eliminate the complexity, the inconsistencies and faults that are inherent in a manual model transformation process. Many of the existing tools that automate the model transformation process require the encoding of transformation rules within the transformation process, which limits their reuse and usability in different contexts. This paper presents a tool that automates the model transformation of component-based systems specification. The tool takes an architectural specification as input and generates a behavior protocol as output. The transformation rules are described independently from the transformation process. This allows changing the transformation rules without affecting the transformation process. We discuss in detail the transformation rules for transforming a trustworthy component-based system, formally specified in an architecture description language (TADL), to an extended timed automata specification. The goal is to formally verify trustworthiness properties claimed in the source model by model checking the trustworthiness properties in the target model. By varying the target model and the set of transformation rules the same tool can be used to obtain different target models and use different verification techniques.

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