Abstract

Over the last few years, several alternatives for adding mobility to Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) signaling protocols have been presented in the literature. However, most of the current approaches for wireless mobile ATM (Wm ATM?) network development include only text and information flows. As a result of the complexity involved in handling mobility, communication, and handoff procedures for Wm ATM? networks, current approaches can lead to ambiguities, gaps, inconsistencies and undesirable interactions at the later stages of the development process where changes can be costly and provoke backward incompatibility. With these problems in mind, this work proposes a development approach that includes a technique called Use Case Maps (UCMs), and the following formal methods: Language of Temporal Ordering Specifications (Lo TOS?) and Message Sequence Charts (MSCs). UCMs are applied at the requirements capture and analysis stages, followed by Lo TOS? and MSCs at the design stage. Besides providing a better and more precise description of the system at the early stages, our main goal is to combine these techniques and to help solve design problems like the ones mentioned above. As a case study, Wm ATM? network procedures are specified using the proposed approach.

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