A safety shell for UML-RT projects structure and methods of the corresponding UML pattern

A safety shell pattern was defined based on a re-configuration management pattern and inspired by the architectural specifications in Specification PEARL. It is meant to be used for real-time applications to be developed with UML-RT as described. The implementation of the safety shell features as defined in Kornecki and Zalewski (Software Development for Real-Time Safety—Critical Applications. Software Engineering Workshop—Tutorial Notes, 29th Annual IEEE/NASA 03, pp 1–95, 2005), namely, its timing and state guards as well as I/O protection and exception handling mechanisms, is explained. The pattern is parameterised by defining the properties of its components as well as by defining the mapping between software and hardware architectures. Initial and alternative execution scenarios as well as the method for switching between them are defined. The goal pursued with the safety shell is to obtain clearly specified operation scenarios with well-defined transitions between them. To achieve safe and timely operation, the pattern must provide safety shell mechanisms for an application designed, i.e., enable its predictable deterministic and temporally predictable operation now and in the future.