Trace visualization and analysis tool for supervisory control systems

Much time has been taken to examine supervisory control systems in their software engineering processes. Trace analysis has been one of the effective methods in proceeding with this examination since traces represent the actual flow of events in the systems. We have developed a trace analysis tool to help us with system understanding. The tool analyzes traces and extracts the kind of event, when it completed and which tasks it involved. It also visualizes the flow of events and the interaction that had taken place between tasks on the screen. The typical feature of the tool is to identify frequent event patterns such as periodic patterns by extending the algorithm for text data compression. We applied the tool to the engineering process of rail traffic control systems, and found the tool was effective in reducing the time for simplifying understanding of the dynamic behaviours of the system and finding problem areas.