UML is a general-purpose modeling language that can be specialized or extended for dealing with specific domains or concerns. The field of real-time and embedded software systems is one such domain for which extensions to UML are required to provide more precise expression of domain-specific phenomena (e.g., mutual exclusion mechanisms, concurrency, deadline specifications, and the like).
The OMG had already adopted a UML profile for this purpose, called the “UML Profile for Schedulability, Performance and Time” (SPT). It provided concepts for dealing with model-based schedulability analysis, focused primarily on rate monotonic analysis, and also concepts for model-based performance analysis based on queuing theory. In addition, SPT also provided a framework for representing time and time-related mechanisms. However, practical experience with SPT revealed shortcomings within the profile in terms of its expressive power and flexibility.
Furthermore, when the new significantly revised version of UML, UML2, was adopted by the OMG, it became necessary to upgrade the SPT profile. Consequently, a new Request For Proposals (RFP) was issued by the OMG seeking for a new UML profile for real-time and embedded systems. This profile was named MARTE (an abbreviated form of “Modeling and Analysis of Real-Time and Embedded systems”).
The intent was to address the above issues as well as to provide alignment with other OMG standard profiles that enable the specification of not only real-time constraints but also other embedded systems characteristics, such as memory capacity and power consumption. MARTE was also required to support modeling and analysis of component-based architectures, as well as a variety of different computational paradigms (asynchronous, synchronous, and timed) This were formalized in the  MARTE RFP.
In response to this request for proposal, a number of OMG member organizations collaborated on a single joint submission. After several years of intense activity, this group, called the ProMARTE consortium, arrived to get issued by the OMG the formal version of the MARTE 1.0 standard.