Background:

Graphical models are used to abstract properties of the system to get a better overview. In real-time embedded systems, the computation also depends on the environment in which the system operates.  Modeling the environment can be particularly useful in the early stages of software development. If we can automatically produce a simulator from this model, the testing phase can already start when the actual environment is not available yet.  The environment should be modeled in a language familiar to software developers (i.e., UML), and then it should be automatically transformed to an executable simulation artifact. 

What you will do:

Support researchers on

1. analyzing the literature on context model transformation and simulation,
2. designing and implementing rules to transform UML Models to executable simulation artifacts as for example DEVS models,
3. evaluating the effectiveness of these transformation rules on actual case studies, and
4. implementing these transformation rules in user friendly tools, e.g., plug-ins of well known UML modeling tools.

What you will learn:

You will gain in-depth knowledge of transformation issues/techniques and UML Modeling, which is increasingly applied in the design of many systems in industry.