Genetic Design: Amplifying Our Ability to Deal With Requirements Complexity

Individual functional requirements represent fragments of behavior, while a design that satisfies a set of functional requirements represents integrated behavior. This perspective admits the prospect of constructing a design out of its requirements. A formal representation for individual functional requirements, called behavior trees makes this possible. Behavior trees, derived by rigorous translation from individual functional requirements stated in natural language, may be composed, one at a time, to create an integrated design behavior tree (DBT). We can then transition from this problem domain representation directly and systematically to a solution domain representation of the component architecture of the system and the behavior designs of the individual components that make up the system – both are emergent properties of a DBT. The Early Warning System case study is used to illustrate this genetic design method, and show its potential for defect detection and control of complexity compared with the Statechart design method.