Authors:
Shan Lu
1
;
Alexey Tazin
1
;
Yanji Chen
1
;
Mieczyslaw M. Kokar
1
and
Jeff Smith
2
Affiliations:
1
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, U.S.A.
;
2
Sierra Nevada Corporation, Sparks, Nevada 89434, U.S.A.
Keyword(s):
UML/OCL Models, OCL Constraints, Consistency Checking, Ontology-based Method, State Machine Diagrams.
Abstract:
Consistency checking of UML/OCL models is a challenging issue in software development. In this paper, we discuss an OWL/ontology-based method to detect the inconsistencies in the UML/OCL models as the first step of requirement change management. Specifically, we map the UML/OCL models to OWL, so that the consistency of the corresponding ontology can be checked by OWL reasoners automatically. We propose a set of mapping rules to interpret the components of UML state machine diagrams, along with OCL constraints, to OWL DL. Towards this objective, we demonstrate three consistency reasoning tasks over a state machine diagram using OWL reasoners. In each case, the result of reasoning is accompanied by an explanation of the logic behind the decision.