Towards a model driven refinement process through architecture evaluation

Real-time embedded systems engineering is a complex process used in the development of industrial systems or products. The development of these systems may need to consider the assessment of numerous different and interrelated quality attributes. The Model-Driven Development approach implies many benefits for this process, owing to the use of high-level models and model transformations. However, it must be carefully applied, since all the quality attributes must be considered if acceptable results are to be attained. In this paper, we propose a method for the incremental refinement of transformations based on the non-functional requirements tradeoff analysis and on the study of its impact on the implementation of transformations. The approach employs sensitivities and the tradeoff identification method. The approach is illustrated with a simple example.