Towards a systematic, tool-independent methodology for defining the execution semantics of UML profiles with fUML

Abstract

The purpose of UML profile mechanism is to design domain specific languages (DSL) based on UML. It exists a wide range of UML profiles: MARTE, ROOM, SysML. Current profile design methodology only considers the syntactic part of the language and keeps informal the execution semantics description. This impairs Model Driven Engineering (MDE) promises which advocates for executable models. This paper presents a systematic approach to formalize the execution semantics of UML profiles using foundational UML (normative specification) which defines a precise semantics for a subset of UML. This approach is integrated into the reference profile design methodology. It is illustrated on a small profile to support Turing machines. It demonstrates capability to execute resulting profiled models through the defined semantics.