ArrowLogics will further develop a design infrastructure for complex systems by carefully reducing to practice the results of decades of research on formal design concepts. This infrastructure includes mechanisms for structuring design representations horizontally (components) and vertically (abstraction layers), while ensuring compatibility of component designs and preservation of required properties under change of abstraction levels. In practice, the reuse of existing tools and components is critical; so is the proper choice of notation or language depending on the component, aspect, or abstraction level considered. To establish semantic cohesion it is therefore necessary to make precise the interaction of tools and components that are based on different formalisms. Our design technology therefore supports multiple logics within the same environment. The innovative aspects of our technology lie in the creative combination of concepts from several mathematical disciplines, the realization of the combined theoretical framework using leading-edge, mainstream technologies, and the visual interface to the semantic design structures.
Potential Commercial Applications:Our technology is applicable beyond software to other engineering disciplines, for instance hardware or mechanical design. It will allow the rapid production and controlled adaptation of high-integrity systems and algorithms. We are in discussion with major aerospace, telecommunications, and hardware design companies about possible applications of this technology. Specialized design environments will be constructed by populating our RAD infrastructure with specific design formalisms, languages, tools, and interfaces. The exact form and nature of the resulting design environments will vary across application domains and organizations. The need for specialized interfaces may be called for by different engineering traditions. The nature of application domains and the need to protect organizational investments in particular tools calls for the integration of different tools in different circumstances. Despite different appearances, all these environments would be organized by the same infrastructure-provided general concepts, ensuring in particular semantic coherence.
