Research Activities

Current Activities

Like most of the software-intensive systems, Safety Critical Embedded Systems (SCES) must satisfy different types of non-functional requirements. Most of these requirements need specific analysis techniques to make sure the system provides its services with a predictable level of quality. Dedicated analysis techniques have emerged to help engineers to evaluate their design against a given set of non- functional requirements. These analysis techniques require a strong expertise, specific to a technical field. For instance, reliability, availability, maintainability and safety are non-functional requirements for which analysis techniques have been experimented in the space domain. In this example, expertise was required in probabilistic model checking. But other types of expertise are also needed to ensure other non-functional requirements are met, such as schedula- bility, deadlock freedom, power consumption limits, etc...

Besides, some of these requirements compete with each other: improving the design with respect to one of them degrades the design with respect to another one. As a consequence, the design of a SCES is known to require trades- off between several non-functional requirements (e.g. mass, power consumption, reliability, schedulability, end-to-end latency, etc...). Since the analysis of each of these requirements requires a dedicated expertise, the definition of trades-off between them involves different experts. Finally, the design of a SCES requires the coordination of decisions from different experts.

In this context, an important challenge is to organize the design process of SCES in order to ease the coordination of collective design decisions. For most specialities involved in the design of an SCES, model driven engineering has shown interesting results to help a designer in his own design decisions. This success relies mainly on two concepts: architecture and abstraction of an implementation. The former helps to organize the design according to well known principles (separation of concerns, components reuse, automation of analysis and deployment). The latter one helps engineers to focus on the features of relevance for their own speciality, abstracting away low-level details that have negligible consequences on the analysis result.

However, models usually aim at guaranteeing one single non-functional requirement is met, in isolation of other non-functional requirements. To our understanding, the state of the art of analysis techniques is far from advocating for a unique analysis framework able to cover all the non-functional characteristics of a SCES. Besides, using analysis techniques properly requires to refine abstract models in order analyze more and more precisely the characteristics of the system under design. In a model driven process, each expert will thus make his own refinement of an abstract model. Finally, SCES designers need methods to merge into one refined model the different contributions of the specialists involved in a design process. Of course, when design decisions have been made in isolation, merging of them becomes a very difficult task. To avoid such situation, model refinements must be guided in order to consider heterogeneous and competing non-functional requirements. The research conducted by Etienne Borde aims at answering this question by overcoming existing limitations of the state-of-the art methods in the domain of MDE for SCES.


Thesis advisor

    Ongoing

    Student: Elie Richa
    Subject: Qualification of Model-Driven Engineering Frameworks

    Student: Smail Rahmoun
    Subject: Composition of Architectural Model Transformations With Multi-Objective Optimization Techniques  

    Defended
 
    Student: Catellanos Cuauhtémoc
    Subject: Composition of Design Pattern for Safety and Security of Real-time Embeded System

List of Publications

Book chapters :

  • E.Borde, G.Haïk, V.Seignole, and V.Watine. From model to platform, a multi-domain component framework. (Du modèle à la plate-forme, un framework à composants Multi-Domaines). Chapter 4 of the book : Distributed Systems in action : from embedded to large scale systems. (Systèmes répartis en action: de l'embarqué aus systèmes à large échelle), Ed. Lavoisier.

  • E.Borde. Software Engineering for Adaptative Embedded Systems. Chapter 8 of the book: Distributed Sysems Design and Algorithms. Ed. WILEY.

International Conferences :
  • Elie Richa, Etienne Borde and Laurent Pautet. Translating ATL Model Transformations to Algebraic Graph Transformations.
    8th International Conference on Model Transformations (ICMT'15), L'Aquila (Italy) 2015.     Best Paper Award.
  • Cuauhtémoc Castellanos, Etienne Borde, Laurent Pautet, Sébastien Gardoll and Thomas Vergnaud. Improving Reusability of Model Transformations by Automating Their Composition.
    41st Euromicro Conference on Software Engineering and Advanced Applications (SEAA'15), Funchal Madeira (Portugal), 2015.
  • Smail Rahmoun, Etienne Borde and Laurent Pautet. Automatic selection and composition of model transformations alternatives using evolutionary algorithms. 
    1st Workshop on Variability for Qualities in Software Architecture (VAQUITA'15), associated with the European Conference on Software Architecture (ECSA'15), Dubrovnik (Croatia), 2015.

  • Etienne Borde, Smail Rahmoun, Fabien Cadoret, Laurent Pautet, Frank Singhoff, Pierre Dissaux. Architecture Models Refinement for Fine Grain Timing Analysis of Embedded Systems.
     International Symposium on Rapid System Prototyping (RSP), New Delhi (India), 2014.

  • Elie Richa, Etienne Borde, Laurent Pautet, Matteo Bordin, and José F. Ruiz. Precondition Analysis in Algebraic Graph Transformation to Support the Testing of Model Transformation Chains.
    3rd MODELS workshop on Analysis of Model Transformations (AMT), Valencia (Spain), 2014.

  • Cuauhtémoc Castellanos, Etienne Borde, Laurent Pautet, Thomas Vergnaud, and Thomas Derive. Automatic Production of Transformation Chains Using Structural Constraints on Output Models.
    40th Euromicro Conference on Software Engineering and Advanced Applications (SEAA'14), Verona (Italy), 2014.
  • Antoine Jaouen, Etienne Borde, Laurent Pautet and Thomas Robert. PDP 4PS : Periodic-Delayed Protocol for Partitioned Systems.
    19th International Conference on Reliable Software Technologies (Ada-Europe 2014). 23-27 June 2014, Paris, France.
  • Grzegorz Loniewski, Etienne Borde, Dominique Blouin and Emilio Insfran. An automated Approach for Architectural Model Transformations.
    22nd International Conference on Informations Systems Development, Sevilla (Spain), 2013.
  • Grzegorz Loniewski, Etienne Borde, Dominique Blouin and Emilio Insfran. Model Driven Requirements Engineering for Embedded Systems Development.
    39th Euromicro Conference on Software Engineering and Advanced Applications (SEAA'13), Santander (Spain), 2013.
  • Cuauhtemoc Castellanos, Thomas Vergnaud, Etienne Borde, Thomas Derive, and Laurent Pautet. Formalization of Design Patterns for Security and Dependability.
    4th International Symposium on Architecting Critical Systems (ISARCS'13), Vancouver (Canada), 2013.
  • Fabien Cadoret, Thomas Robert, Etienne Borde, Laurent Pautet and Franck Singhoff. Deterministic Implementation of Periodic-Delayed Communications and Experimentation in AADL.
    16th IEEE Symposium on Object/Component/Service-Oriented Real-time distributed Computing (ISORC'13), Paderborn (Germany), 2013.

  • Fabien Cadoret, Etienne Borde, Sébastien Gardoll and Laurent Pautet. Design Patterns for Rule-based Refinement of Safety Critical Embedded Systems Models.
    International Conference on Engineering of Complex Computer Systems (ICECCS'12), Paris (FRANCE), 2012.

  • Michael Lafaye, Laurent Pautet, Etienne Borde, Marc Gatti, and David Faura. Model driven resource usage simulation for critical embedded systems.
    International Conference on Design, Automation and Test in Europe (DATE'12), Dresden (GERMANY), 2012.

  • E.Borde and J.Carlson. Towards verified synthesis of ProCom, a component model for real-time embedded systems.
    Component-Based Software Engineering (CBSE'11), Boulder (USA), 2011.

  • T.Leveque, E.Borde, A.Marref and J.Carlson. Hierarchical Composition of Parametric WCET in a Component Based Approach.
    International Symposium on Object/Component/Service-Oriented Real-Time Distributed Computing     (ISORC'11), Newport Beach (USA), 2011.

  • E.Borde, G.Haïk, and L.Pautet. Mode-Based Reconfiguration of Critical Software Component Architectures.
    International Conference on Design, Automation and Test in Europe (DATE'09), Nice (FRANCE), 2009

International Workshops :

  • Grzegorz Loniewski, Etienne Borde and Emilio Insfran. Towards a Model Driven Refinement Process Through Architecture Evaluation.
    4    th International Workshop on Non-functional System Properties in Domain Specific Modeling Languages (NFPinDSML'12), Innsbruck (Austria), 2012.

  • Hang Yin, Etienne Borde, and Hans Hansson. Composable mode switch for component-based systems.
    3rd Workshop on Adaptive and Reconfigurable Embedded Systems (APRES'11), Chicago (USA), 2011.

  • E.Borde and J.Carlson. Automatic Synthesis and Adaption of Gray-Box Components for Embedded Systems - Reuse vs. Optimization.
    COMPSAC'11 Workshops, Munich (GERMANY), 2011.

  • E.Borde. Formal Model Assisted Code Generation for Critical Embedded Systems.
    International Workshop on Component-Oriented Programming (WCOP'10), Prague (CZECH REPUBLIC), 2010.

  • E.Borde, G.Haïk, L.Pautet, and P.Feiler. A New Design Approach for Adaptative Embedded Systems.
    Workshop on Adaptive and Reconfigurable Embedded Systems(APRES'09), Grenoble (FRANCE), 2009.

  • H.Balp, E.Borde, G.Haïk, and J.-F.Tilman. Automatic Composition of AADL Models for the Verification of Critical Component-Based Embedded Systems.
    International workshop on AADL and UML (UML-AADL'08), Belfast (IRELAND), 2008.

National Workshops :

  • E.Borde, G.Haïk, and L.Pautet. Adaptation dynamique des systèmes critiques, une nouvelle approche. (Dynamic Adaptation of Critical Systems, an new approach).
    Ecole d'été Temps-réel (Real-time summer school) ; ETR'09, Paris (FRANCE), 2009.

  • E.Borde, G.Haïk, V.Watine and L.Pautet. Really Hard Time developing Hard Real Time.
    National Workshop on Control Architectures of Robots (CAR'07), Paris (FRANCE) 2007

National Journals :

  • E.Borde, C.Castellanos, H.Balp, F.Cadoret, L.Pautet, D.Potop-Butucaru, Y.Sorel and P.Dissaux. Les apports de l’IDM à la sécurité et à la sûreté de fonctionnement. Une application à la radio logicielle Revue Génie Logiciel, n°101, juin 2012.
  • E.Borde, F.Gilliers, G.Haïk, J.Hugues and L.Pautet. MyCCM-HI : un framework à composants mettant en œuvre une approche d’ingénierie dirigée par les modèles. (MyCCM-HI : a component framewrok carrying out a model driven engineering approach.) Revue Génie Logiciel (Computer Science Review), n° 89, juin 2009.

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