Abstracting timing information in UML state charts via temporal ordering and LOTOS

As testing of software systems becomes more and more important and expensive, there is a trend to automate as much as possible of this task. This article is intended as an attempt to breach the gap between academic model-based testing tools and their usage in industry. This is done by allowing the specification of a system in a widely accepted industry notation (UML state charts) and via a behind the scene transformation providing a formal representation of the system using the formal language LOTOS. As a byproduct of the transformation a formal semantics of UML state charts is given. An interesting class of software systems well suited for the application are distributed timed control oriented systems. As LOTOS contains no timing constructs, the timing information in the system is automatically abstracted by preserving the execution order of the timeout transitions.