AMASS status at month 6

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Six months have already passed since AMASS started... During the first semester of the project, the AMASS consortium has devoted its technical efforts to both (1) systematically investigate and specify the R&D problem and industrial needs on assurance and certification of cyber-physical systems, and (2) design the basic building blocks of the full AMASS architecture by reusing existing baseline tools.

The first aspect was addressed by the different work packages as follows. WP1 was focused on the particular needs of the project partners concretized on the Industrial Case Studies. The case studies have been systematically specified by stating the industrial context, regulatory frameworks, the specific needs associated to the AMASS technical objectives, and the business needs related to the AMASS goals. In addition to the specific needs stated by case study owners, the full consortium has contributed to the definition of industrial usage scenarios. This is part of the deliverable D1.1. WP2 looked at general needs and requirements for the different industrial domains targeted by AMASS (railway, aerospace, space, automotive, industrial automation). WP2 also iteratively revised the specific needs stemming from WP1. The requirements for the first prototype (Year 1) have been brainstormed, collected and formalized in a structured template, and it will be part of deliverable D2.1.

WP3, WP4, WP5 and WP6 focused on a detailed analysis of the state of the art and state of the practice for the respective four project objectives. WP3 worked on specifying the background on architecture-driven assurance, including the study of system modelling languages, V&V tools, architectural patterns and the study of contract-based approaches for compositional assurance. WP4 focused on the survey of the multi-concern assurance approaches, including the argumentation needs and component contract-related aspects. WP5 was concerned with the related research and industrial work on tool interoperability, data management strategies, UI approaches, and team collaboration features at tooling level. WP6 conducted a survey of compliance management solutions, process-based approaches and product-based approaches for reuse of assurance and certification assets. These activities have been reported in the corresponding deliverables D3.1, D4.1, D5.1 and D6.1. These deliverables provide a straightforward summary of the challenges AMASS shall face to achieve its goals. They also pave the way forward towards the achievement of the AMASS goals.

Regarding the second aspect, the AMASS consortium started to specify the AMASS Reference Tool Architecture (ARTA), the Common Assurance and Certification Metamodel (CACM), and the approaches for compliance management, evidence management, assurance case specification and system component specification (see figure below). These are the basic building blocks to be developed in Year 1. In-depth discussions took place about the existing solutions that AMASS could reuse, as well as about the challenges to tackle. It was concluded that the results from SafeCer and OPENCOSS can be combined so that AMASS takes advantage of both, and that a deeper analysis of certain modelling languages and metamodels is necessary to determine how AMASS can use them, e.g. the current work on the Structured Assurance Case Metamodel (SACM) and the Software and System Process Engineering Metamodel (SPEM). The analysis of the languages, their metamodels and their combination also enables the study of possible solutions for cross- and intra-domain assurance reuse. The result of these activities is part of deliverable D2.2, where three AMASS design perspectives are developed: logical view (functionalities concretized in use cases), structural view (how the amass building blocks are composed and connected), and interaction view (the data and control exchange between AMASS tool blocks).