Model-Based Software Engineering and Certification: Some Open Issues

Model-based software engineering methodologies, languages, standards, technologies, and tools are in place since many years. While they proved to be effective in several application sectors, e.g. for embedded systems, empirical studies show that their use in industries pursues a variety of goals and that often they are only partially applied, so it is still not clear to what extent they are actually adopted in the engineering practice and whether they achieve the claimed advantages. Notwithstanding this, model-based techniques are being increasingly advocated for use in critical systems engineering. As critical systems have to undergo certification, the question raised to what extent model-based engineering supports certification. While this is not a new issue, the literature is still at the beginning. We examine key aspects in this respect, and identify some open issues.