DESIGN TRANSFORMATION AND PROTOTYPING USING MULTIPLE VIEWPOINTS

One of the problems in designing the software for large real-time syst ems is to ensure that the eventual implementation corresponds to the d esign specifications. In this paper we describe how the process of aut omatically transforming a systematic (and diagrammatical) design speci fication into an 'intermediate' outline of a formal specification can be enhanced by including information about the intended behaviour of t he system. Since the formal specification generated is itself executab le, this means that the designer can easily generate quite extensive p rototypes as a means of exploring his or her ideas, and these can then be used as a more comprehensive basis for creating the eventual imple mentation. We also explore the effects of adding information about tim ing and constraints to the behavioural description, and show the conse quences of this in terms of creating further enhancements to the forma l specification produced from our system.