Creating reference architectures: an example from avionics

ADAGE is a project to define and build a domain-specific software architecture (DSSA) environment for assisting the development of avionics software. A central concept of DSSA is the use of software system generators to implement component-based models of software synthesis in the target domain [SEI90]. In this paper, we present the ADAGE component-based model (or reference architecture) for avionics software synthesis. We explain the modeling procedures used, review our initial goals, show how component reuse is achieved, and examine what we were (and were not) able to accomplish. The contributions of our paper are the avionics reference architecture and the lessons that we learned; both may be beneficial to others in future modeling efforts.