Using Ontologies in the Integration of Structural, Functional, and Process Perspectives in the Development of Safety Critical Systems

Abstract- We present a systematic approach for the efficient management of the data involved in the development process of safety critical systems, illustrating how the activities performed during the life-cycle can be integrated in a common framework. Information needed in these activities reflects concepts that pertain to three different perspectives: i) structural elements of design and implementation; ii) functional requirements and quality attributes; iii) organization of the overall process. The integration of these concepts may considerably improve the trade-off between reward and effort spent in verification and quality-driven activities. We address the exploitation of ontological modeling and semantic technologies so as to support cohesion across different stages of the development life-cycle, attaching a machine-readable semantics to concepts belonging to structural, functional and process perspectives. The formalized conceptualization enables the implementation of a tool leveraging on well established technologies aiding the accomplishment of crucial and effort-expensive activities such as the identification of the associations between requirements and the SW components implementing them.