STATEMATE: a Working Environment for the Development of Complex Reactive Systems

Provides a brief overview of the STATEMATE system. STATEMATE is a graphical working environment, intended for the specification, analysis, design and documentation of large and complex reactive systems, such as real-time embedded systems, control and communication systems, and interactive software. It enables a user to prepare, analyze and debug diagrammatic, yet precise, descriptions of the system under development from three inter-related points of view, capturing, structure, functionality and behavior. These views are represented by three graphical languages, the most intricate of which is the language of statecharts used to depict reactive behavior over time. In addition to the use of statecharts, the main novelty of STATEMATE is in the fact that it `understands' the entire descriptions perfectly, to the point of being able to analyze them for crucial dynamic properties, to carry out rigorous animated executions and simulations of the described system, and to create running code automatically. These features are invaluable when it comes to the quality and reliability of the final outcome