Combining data flow equations with UML/Realtime

Object-oriented modeling languages, tools, and methods are attracting the interest of embedded (real-time) system developers. This is especially true if embedded (real-time) system software has to cooperate with interactive multimedia software, as is becoming the case in automotive systems. It is still an open question whether and how the standard OO modeling language UML and its accompanying tools have to be adapted to the regarded application domain. This paper evaluates the development of a rapid prototype for an air conditioning controller with the popular CASE tool Rational Rose/RT(R). We point out weaknesses of the presented solution and propose an extension to Rose/RT(R), which overcomes the weaknesses by combining Rose/RT's UML dialect with data flow equations.