SatTerm experience: vocabulary control and facet analysis help improve the software requirement solicitation process

To solve this issue, practitioners should pay attention to the possibility of applying vocabulary control and knowledge representation techniques to produce better specifications. The use of controlled vocabularies and the modelling of the conceptual relationships between concepts in a specific domain are expected to improve the quality of the specifications.

Vocabulary control and semantic modelling are promising tools to avoid the most frequent problems in the requirements specification process: lack of consistency and ambiguity. This paper provides a detailed description of the development process of an ontology used for requirements modelling in the area of satellite control systems. The process applied is based on well-established practices and guidelines applied for the construction of controlled vocabularies and faceted classifications schemas.