Minseong Kim

Combining feature-oriented analysis and aspect-oriented programming for product line asset development

Feature-oriented analysis (FOA) provides key information for developing reusable and adaptable product line assets. The information includes commonalities and variabilities, various dependencies between features, and their binding time information. On the other hand, aspect-oriented programming (AOP) provides effective mechanisms for encapsulating crosscutting concerns into separate entities, called aspects. By tightly coupling FOA with AOP, we can enhance reusability, adaptability, and configurability of product line assets. In this paper, we present detailed guidelines on how FOA and AOP can be combined. To validate our approach, we applied it to the engineering of an intelligent service robot product line.

Goal and scenario based domain requirements analysis environment

Identifying and representing domain requirements among products in a product family are crucial activities for a successful software reuse. The domain requirements should be not only identified based on the business goal, which drives marketing plan, product plan, and differences among products, but also represented as familiar notations in order to support developing a particular product in the product family. Thus, our proposal is to identify the domain requirements through goals and scenarios, and represent them as variable use cases for a product family. Especially, for identification of the domain requirements, we propose four abstraction levels of requirements in a product family, and goal and scenario modeling. For representation of them, variable use case model is suggested, and also the use case transfer rules are proposed so as to bridge the gap between the identification and representation activity. The paper illustrates the application of the approach within a supporting tool using the HIS (Home Integration System) example.

UML-based service robot software development: a case study

The research field of Intelligent Service Robots, which has become more and more popular over the last years, covers a wide range of applications from climbing machines for cleaning large storefronts to robotic assistance for disabled or elderly people. When developing service robot software, it is a challenging problem to design the robot architecture by carefully considering user needs and requirements, implement robot application components based on the architecture, and integrate these components in a systematic and comprehensive way for maintainability and reusability. Furthermore, it becomes more difficult to communicate among development teams and with others when many engineers from different teams participate in developing the service robot. To solve these problems, we applied the COMET design method, which uses the industry-standard UML notation, to developing the software of an intelligent service robot for the elderly, called T-Rot, under development at Center for Intelligent Robotics (CIR). In this paper, we discuss our experiences with the project in which we successfully addressed these problems and developed the autonomous navigation system of the robot with the COMET/UML method.

Managing requirements conflicts in software product lines: A goal and scenario based approach

The product line approach is recognized as a successful approach to reuse in software development. However, in many cases, it has resulted in interactions between requirements and/or features. Interaction detection, especially conflict detection between requirements has become more challenging. Thus, detecting conflicts between requirements is essential for successful product line development. Formal methods have been proposed to address this problem, however, they are hard to understand by non-experts and are limited to restricted domains. In addition, there is no overall process that covers all the steps for managing conflicts. We propose an approach for systematically identifying and managing requirements conflicts, which is based on requirements partition in natural language and supported by a tool. To demonstrate its feasibility, the proposed approach has been applied to the home integration system (HIS) domain and the results are discussed.

A scenario, goal and feature‐oriented domain analysis approach for developing software product lines

A software product line (SPL) captures commonalities and variations (C&V) within a family of systems. Although, feature‐oriented approaches have been proposed for building product lines, none of them provide a systematic approach for identifying features. This paper proposes a domain analysis method for creating SPL based on scenarios, goals and features. In particular, the paper presents a domain requirements model (DRM) that integrates features with goals and scenarios, and a domain requirements modeling method that uses the DRM. This approach has been applied to the home integration system (HIS) domain to demonstrate its feasibility. This approach makes it possible to systematically identify features and provide the rationale for both features and C&V.

Service Identification Using Goal and Scenario in Service Oriented Architecture

Recently, organizations face various business challenges because of rapidly changing user needs and expectations. SOA (Service-Oriented Architecture) is a promising technique for adequately handling them in organizations. In developing SOA based systems, service identification is one of the core activities, having a broad influence on the systems. To identify proper services, business goals and business change factors should be analyzed because the ultimate aim of SOA is to achieve business goals and business agility in turbulent business environment. To tackle this, we propose a service identification method based on goal-scenario modeling and a conceptual framework to elicit possible business changes. Traceability among business goals, business changes and identified services are also constructed in this approach. We applied our approach into the HRS (Hotel Reservation System) domain to demonstrate its feasibility.

From product lines to self-managed systems: an architecture-based runtime reconfiguration framework

Adaptability and/or high availability are requirements which have become more prevalent and important for computing systems in recent years. To support adaptability and availability, a system must be able to dynamically change its behavior at runtime as user requirements, execution environments, or technologies change. Our aim is to develop a dynamic software product line in which a product line member can be dynamically modified after its deployment and thus new products can be produced during runtime without newly developing the products. To do so, we present a runtime reconfiguration framework based on reconfigurable components in supporting building dynamic product lines, particularly within the embedded software domain. Ultimately, our framework supports dynamic reconfiguration and not only reusable, but also reconfigurable components development in the context of self-managed systems.

A method and tool support for variant requirements analysis: goal and scenario based approach

Identifying and representing variant requirements among products in a product family are crucial activities for a successful software reuse. The variant requirements should be not only identified based on the business goal, which drives marketing plan, product plan, and differences among products, but also represented as familiar notations in order to support developing a particular product in the product family. Thus, our proposal is to identify the variant requirements through goals and scenarios, and represent them as variable use cases for a product family. Especially, for identification of the variant requirements, we propose four abstraction levels of requirements in the product family, and goal and scenario modeling. For representation of them, variable use case model is suggested, and also the use case transfer rules are proposed so as to bridge the gap between the identification and representation activity. The paper illustrates the application of the approach within a supporting tool, namely DREAM (Domain REquirements Analysis Method) using the ATM example.

A domain analysis method for software product lines based on scenarios, goals and features

A feature-oriented approach has been used extensively for commonality and variability (C&V) analysis in software product lines (SPL). However, this feature-oriented approach contains no proposal to systematically identify features and provide the rationale for both the features and C&V. Therefore, we propose a domain analysis method for the SPL based on scenarios, goals and features in order to overcome some of the deficiencies and limitations of the feature-oriented approach. In particular, we present a domain requirements model (DRM) that integrates features with both goals and scenarios. Using this DRM, we also propose a domain requirements modeling method. At the end, this approach is applied to a home integration system (HIS) and then is also evaluated. Our approach makes it possible to systematically identify features and provide the rationale for both the features and C&V. Thus, the approach provides a systematic and concrete domain analysis method for the SPL.

Intelligent Robot Software Architecture

This paper describes the software architecture of intelligent robots, developed by Center for Intelligent Robotics (CIR). The architecture employs a hybrid type consisting of deliberate, sequencing and reactive behaviors. The primary contributions of the architecture are the followings: 1) reusability and extensibility for the rapid development of robot systems with different requirements and 2) adaptability to distributed computing environments, different OS’s and various programming languages. The architecture has successfully been applied to the development of CIR’s many robot platforms such as T-Rot, Kibo and Easy Interaction Room. T-Rot and Kibo have been exhibited at the 2005 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) in Korea.