A Model-Driven Domain-Specific Scripting Language for Measurement-System Frameworks

A measurement-domain-specific language, which is based on a model-driven paradigm for measurement-test-procedure definition, instrument configurations, and task synchronization, is proposed. This formal language, which is particular for a specific measurement field, aims at specifying complete, easy-to-understand, easy-to-reuse, and easy-to-maintain applications efficiently and quickly by means of a script. The script is checked and integrated into the existing software framework automatically by a specific parser-builder chain, in order to produce the measurement application. Constructs for abstracting key concepts of the domain allow the test engineer to write more concise and higher level programs by natural language-like sentences in a shorter time without being a skilled programmer. As an experimental case study, the proposed language has been applied to the flexible framework for magnetic measurements at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN).