In-Depth

Telelogic Rhapsody Expands Modeling for Embedded Apps

Release targets software reuse and Simulink model integration.

• By Peter Varhol
• October 1, 2006

Telelogic took another step in fulfilling its vision of enterprise lifecycle management with the release of Rhapsody 7.0, a comprehensive Unified Modeling Language (UML) and Model-Driven Development (MDD) modeling environment for embedded system design and implementation. Rhapsody incorporates UML modeling, code generation for C, C++, Java, and Ada, and offers roundtrip engineering between model and code.

This version of Rhapsody includes Eclipse links for working with code in the Eclipse environment, better support for any combination of code-centric or model-centric development, supports the software product line reuse initiative, and enables interaction with models created in Simulink.

One of the most significant barriers to adoption of modeling is the perception that it must be applied at the beginning of an entirely new project. Because new projects without older code or requirements tend to be infrequent, you have fewer opportunities to apply UML and MDD in practice.

Telelogic Rhapsody hopes to overcome this barrier by providing a flexible environment that supports equally both modeling and coding at any stage of the application lifecycle. You can import legacy code into a model, generate code from a model, make changes to generated code, and integrate changes back into a model. Your model can serve as documentation for an existing application that is undergoing modification, or as the application itself, designed from scratch.

One way Rhapsody provides you with this functionality is through an integration link with the Eclipse C/C++ development toolkit (CDT). (Rhapsody can also work with the Eclipse-Java infrastructure for Java projects.) While the product maintains its own development environment, you can import your Rhapsody projects into Eclipse projects, and the tight link between the two environments ensures that code modified in Eclipse can be immediately visible back in a Rhapsody model.

Rhapsody also offers you the ability to create modeling artifacts that support emerging trends in software reuse, such as the Software Product Line approach. A software product line is a set of software-intensive systems that share a common, managed set of features, which satisfy the specific needs of a particular market segment or mission and are developed in a prescribed way from a common set of core assets. As is the case with other popular software engineering initiatives, the Software Product Line approach represents an area of research and specification by the Software Engineering Institute of Carnegie Mellon University.

Last, Rhapsody 7.0 lets you import and work with MathWorks Simulink models. Simulink, the leading environment for modeling dynamic control systems, provides a graphical language for creating executable models for factory automation and control. With this feature set, you can enable integration of detailed mathematical equations into the Rhapsody model. It includes controls and signal processing algorithms in its design so you can test the design against plant models.

Telelogic Rhapsody 7.0 is available immediately. More information about this product is available at www.telelogic.com.