Extending statecharts to model system interactions

Abstract

Background

Statecharts are diagrams comprised of visual elements that can improve the modeling of reactive system behaviors. They extend conventional state diagrams with the notions of hierarchy, concurrency and communication. However, when statecharts are considered to support the modeling of system interactions, e.g., in Systems of Systems (SoS), they lack the notions of multiplicity (of systems), and interactions and parallelism (among systems).;

Methods

To solve these problems, this paper proposes extensions to statecharts. First, a notation to represent a set of orthogonal states, similar in their structures but belonging to different systems, like a pool of telephone systems, is proposed. Second, the concept of communication among parallel states is extended to also represent system interactions, i.e., the relationships among orthogonal systems by means of proper interaction mechanisms like event broadcast.;