On metamodel composition

Abstract

Computer-based systems (CBS) development integrates various disciplines, such as hardware design, software engineering, and performance modeling, as well as the "base" engineering discipline in which the CBS will operate. As such, use of a "non-native" modeling language is not acceptable when performing CBS design, and rapid specification and development of domain-specific modeling languages (DSMLs) is necessary. We advocate a UML-based metamodeling technique to DSML specification and generation. A key feature of our approach is the composition of new metamodels from existing metamodels through the use of three newly defined UML operators-equivalence, implementation inheritance, and interface inheritance. The paper describes the development of these new operators, details how they are used in metamodel composition, and presents examples of metamodel composition.