E. Najm, U. Nestmann, and P. Stevens (Eds.): FMOODS 2003, LNCS 2884, pp. 214–228, 2003.
© IFIP International Federation for Information Processing 2003
New Operators for the TURTLE Real-Time UML Profile
Christophe Lohr
1
, Ludovic Apvrille
2
,
Pierre de Saqui-Sannes
1,3
, and Jean-Pierre Courtiat
1
1
LAAS-CNRS, 7 avenue du Colonel Roche,
31077 Toulouse Cedex 04, France
{lohr,courtiat}@laas.fr
2
Concordia University, ECE department, 1455 de Maisonneuve W.,
Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8 Canada
apvrille@ece.concordia.ca
3
ENSICA, 1 place Emile Blouin,
31056 Toulouse Cedex 05, France
desaqui@ensica.fr
Abstract. In a previous paper, we defined TURTLE, a Timed UML and RT-
LOTOS Environment which includes a real-time UML profile with a formal
semantics given in terms of translation to RT-LOTOS, and a model validation
approach based on the RTL toolset. This paper presents an enhanced TURTLE
with new composition operators (Invocation, Periodic, Suspend / Resume) and
suspendable temporal operators which makes it possible to model scheduling
constraints of real-time systems. The proposed extension is formalized in terms
of translation to native TURTLE. Thus, we preserve the possibility to use RTL
to check a real-time system model against logical and timing errors. A case
study illustrates the use of the new operators.
1 Introduction
The Unified Modeling Language provides a general purpose notation for software
system description and documentation. The fathers of the OMG standard [7] expected
UML to evolve and to be specialized for specific classes of systems. Therefore, they
introduced the concept of profile
1
to specialize the UML meta-model into a specific
meta-model dedicated to a given application domain [10].
Further, several lobbyists at OMG have worked on a profile for real-time systems,
published in early 2002 [8] and on the next version of UML, UML 2.0, an enhanced
UML with real-time oriented features [12]. Although UML 2.0 opens promising ave-
nues for real-time system modeling, the draft document [12] does not provide en-
hanced UML with a methodology or a formal semantics. Also, the expression power
1
A profile may contain selected elements of the reference meta-model, extension mechanisms,
a description of the profile semantics, additional notations, and rules for model translation,
validation, and presentation.