Systems are viewed in terms of the components used to construct them and the connectors used to combine these components.
Architecture is critical in developing systems that are scalable and maintainable.
Labelled Transition System for composite telephone switching system. Darwin was originally conceived in the context of distributed system development, however, as a result of the ARES project, it has found commercial application in the form of Koala, an ADL based on Darwin and used by Philips in the development of television product families. More recently, the group has developed modeling techniques and tools that are targeted at analyzing the behaviour of systems in advance of implementation. The Labelled Transition System Analyser tool is available from the group's website. Currently, research in the group is addressing systems with dynamically changing and self-organizing software architectures.