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The SAE Architecture Analysis &Design Language (referred
to in this document as AADL) is a
textual and graphical language used to design and analyze the software and hardware architecture
of performance-critical real-time systems. These are systems whose operation strongly depends
on meeting non-functional system requirements such as reliability, availability, timing,
responsiveness, throughput, safety, and security. The AADL is used to describe the structure of
such systems as an assembly of software components mapped onto an execution platform. It can
be used to describe functional interfaces to components (such as data inputs and outputs) and
performance-critical aspects of components (such as timing). The AADL can also be used to
describe how components interact, such as how data inputs and outputs are connected or how
application software components are allocated to execution platform components. The language
can also be used to describe the dynamic behavior of the runtime architecture by providing support
to model operational modes and mode transitions. The language is designed to be extensible to
accommodate analyses of the runtime architectures that the core language does not completely
support. Extensions can take the form of new properties and analysis specific notations that can
be associated with components.
The AADL was developed to meet the special needs of performance-critical
real-time systems,
including embedded real-time systems such as avionics, automotive electronics, or robotics
systems. The language can describe important performance-critical aspects such as timing
requirements, fault and error behaviors, time and space partitioning, and safety and certification
properties. Such a description allows a system designer to perform analyses of the composed
components and systems such as system schedulability, sizing analysis, and safety analysis.
From these analyses, the designer can evaluate architectural tradeoffs and changes.
Since the AADL supports multiple and extensible analysis
approaches, it provides the ability to
analyze the cross cutting impacts of change in the architecture in one specification using a variety
of analysis tools. The AADL specification language is designed to be used with analysis tools
that
support the automatic generation of the source code needed to integrate the system components
and build a system executive. Since the models and the architecture specification drive the design
and implementation, they can be maintained to permit model driven architecture based changes
throughout the system lifecycle. |
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