The ADAGE Example

Introduction

ADAGE (Avionics Domain Application Generation Environment) is an environment for developing, specifying, and analyzing helicopter avionics software. It is intended to be easily adaptable and reconfigurable. The ADAGE project is being conducted by an IBM-led team in the DSSA Program. The avionics software system architecture defined by IBM using the ADAGE environment includes Flight Director, Navigation, and Guidance subsystems and a collection of Data Source objects for managing data from external aircraft sensors.

Publications

A Rapide-1.0 Definition of the ADAGE Avionics System , November 1994, 82-page technical report.
Abstract: We have used the Rapide prototyping-languages, developed by Stanford and TRW under the ARPA ProtoTech Program, in a series of exercises to model an early version of IBM's ADAGE software architecture for helicopter avionics systems. These exercises, conducted under the ARPA Domain Specific Software Architectures (DSSA) Program, also assisted the evolution of the Rapide languages. The resulting Rapide-1.0 model of the ADAGE architecture in this paper is substantially more succinct and illuminating than the original models, developed in Rapide-0.2 and Preliminary Rapide-1.0. All Rapide versions include these key features: interfaces, by which types of components and their possible interactions with other components are defined; actions, by which the events that can be observed or generated by such components are defined; and pattern-based constraints, which define properties of the computation of interacting components in terms of partially ordered sets of events. Key features of Rapide-1.0 include services, which abstract whole communication patterns between components; behavior rules, which provide a state-transition oriented specification of component behavior and from which computation component instances can be synthesized; and architectures, which describe implementations of components with a particular interface, by showing a composition of subordinate components and their interconnections. The Rapide-1.0 model is illustrated with corresponding diagrammatic representations.

Representations

GIF representations of the PostScript version) and the PostScript version) are available

For More Information

See the DSSA-ADAGE Home Page.

Back to the Rapide home page.

mann@anna.stanford.edu