Specifying Reactive Systems through the Object-Process Methodology

There is general consensus in the software and control systems literature that real-time systems are difficult to model, specify, and design. This is due to the fact that issues such as concurrency, synchronization between processes, and real-time constraints must be expressed. Since real time systems play a central role in many technological advents, it is an important and challenging task to develop an intuitive and easy-to-use, yet coherent and concise method for specifying such systems. The Object-Process Methodology (OPM) graphically specifies systems in a single unified model that describes the static-structural and behavioralprocedural aspects of a system. OPM/T is an extension of OPM for specification of reactive and real-time systems, which is capable of expressing temporal constraints, referencing events, and handling exceptions. In this paper, OPM/T is presented and demonstrated through the specification of a home heating system.