Model-driven requirements engineering for embedded systems development

The development of embedded systems is a complex and challenging task. Part of this complexity originates from limited resources and the need to solve tradeoffs between competing quality properties and goals. Producing a correct design therefore requires a complete and understandable requirements specification. Non-Functional Goals (NFGs) are commonly used to analyze these tradeoffs, while Model-Driven Development has the potential to reduce the design complexity of embedded systems by increasing the abstraction level. In this paper, we extend the Requirements Definition and Analysis Language (RDAL) for goals specification in order to drive a model-driven architecture refinement of embedded systems. Determining the impact of the refinements on Non-Functional Properties (NFPs) and relating these NFPs to design objects are the key aspects of our method. The feasibility of the approach is illustrated through the introduction of a Pacemaker system which needs to deal with several NFPs such as performance, availability, and power consumption.