System Design Combining Functional Decomposition And Object-Oriented Programming

Abstract

An architecture for designing complex systems includes combining functional decomposition and object-oriented techniques at each level along with specifying links between the levels as well as links between the objects at a level to promote understanding of the system under development and assist both the system design engineers and the hardware and software engineers to develop the system.

1 . A method for functional object design, comprising the steps of:
 providing a hierarchy of levels, with each level populated with objects; and,   decomposing selected objects within a level to a sub-level.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein for each level on creates objects utilizing at least one of case diagrams, sequence diagrams, state transition diagrams, activity diagrams, and a class diagram, with links between the objects at one level and between an object at one level and a sub-object at a different level accounting for the interfacing. 
     
     
         3 . An architecture for designing complex systems, comprising:
 combining functional decomposition and object-oriented techniques at each hierarchical level and supplying links between the levels as well as between the objects at any given level.   
     
     
         4 . A method for generating a specification for a complex project having hardware and physical limits of a system as well as software components, comprising the steps of:
 generating the specification through the use of combined object-oriented programming and functional decomposition techniques that take into account the hardware and physical limits such that the object oriented programming encapsulates inherent characteristics of software and hardware, whereby a consistent design methodology is provided for architecting complex systems; and,   maintaining system design artifacts in an integrated and common repository in which all design artifacts from an initial statement of system objective to computer source code realizing the software component of the system are linked together.   
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 4 , wherein the complex system design includes hierarchical levels and wherein object-oriented analysis and design techniques are used at each individual hierarchical level such that the same well-defined steps of design development are used at each level of system decomposition.