4,213 research outputs found
Traceability Analysis of a High-Level Automotive System Architecture Document
More and more functions in automotive systems are enabled and controlled by software that is distributed over a large number of systems and components. In addition, the systems are more and more interconnected to implement the desired vehicle functions. Creating and maintaining a high-level overview of the relations between vehicle functions, systems, and components in a complete and consistent way requires a lot of effort. On the other hand, such a high-level architecture is beneficial for planning the development, analyzing the architecture, or defining product variants. In this paper, we analyze a real-world document that was manually created to document all vehicle functions, systems, and components of one car series and relations between these. We formalized the content of this model by providing a model of the concepts and a set of consistency rules. By evaluating the consistency rules on the given document, we found 213 contradictory relations and 547 missing relations. Based on these results, we conclude that manually maintaining such high-level architectures is highly error-prone and should thus be supported by automation and appropriate tooling
Boundary Objects and their Use in Agile Systems Engineering
Agile methods are increasingly introduced in automotive companies in the
attempt to become more efficient and flexible in the system development. The
adoption of agile practices influences communication between stakeholders, but
also makes companies rethink the management of artifacts and documentation like
requirements, safety compliance documents, and architecture models.
Practitioners aim to reduce irrelevant documentation, but face a lack of
guidance to determine what artifacts are needed and how they should be managed.
This paper presents artifacts, challenges, guidelines, and practices for the
continuous management of systems engineering artifacts in automotive based on a
theoretical and empirical understanding of the topic. In collaboration with 53
practitioners from six automotive companies, we conducted a design-science
study involving interviews, a questionnaire, focus groups, and practical data
analysis of a systems engineering tool. The guidelines suggest the distinction
between artifacts that are shared among different actors in a company (boundary
objects) and those that are used within a team (locally relevant artifacts). We
propose an analysis approach to identify boundary objects and three practices
to manage systems engineering artifacts in industry
Ensuring the visibility and traceability of items through logistics chain of automotive industry based on AutoEPCNet Usage
Traceability in logistics is the capability of the participants to trace the products throughout the supply chain by means of either the product and/or container identifiers in a forward and/or backward direction. In today's competitive economic environment, traceability is a key concept related to all products and all types of supply chains. The goal of this paper is to describe development of application that enables to create and share information about the physical movement and status of products as they travel throughout the supply chain. The main purpose of this paper is to describe the development of RFID based track and trace system for ensuring the visibility and traceability of items in logistics chain especially in automotive industry. The proposed solution is based on EPCglobal Network Architecture
Enhancing the EAST-ADL error model with HiP-HOPS semantics
EAST-ADL is a domain-specific modelling language for the engineering of automotive embedded systems. The language has abstractions that enable engineers to capture a variety of information about design in the course of the lifecycle — from requirements to detailed design of hardware and software architectures. The specification of the EAST-ADL language includes an error model extension which documents language structures that allow potential failures of design elements to be specified locally. The effects of these failures are then later assessed in the context of the architecture design. To provide this type of useful assessment, a language and a specification are not enough; a compiler-like tool that can read and operate on a system specification together with its error model is needed. In this paper we integrate the error model of EAST-ADL with the precise semantics of HiP-HOPS — a state-of-the-art tool that enables dependability analysis and optimization of design models. We present the integration concept between EAST-ADL structure and HiP-HOPS error propagation logic and its transformation into the HiP-HOPS model. Source and destination models are represented using the corresponding XML formats. The connection of these two models at tool level enables practical EAST-ADL designs of embedded automotive systems to be analysed in terms of dependability, i.e. safety, reliability and availability. In addition, the information encoded in the error model can be re-used across different contexts of application with the associated benefits for cost reduction, simplification, and rationalisation of dependability assessments in complex engineering designs
Towards a Formalism-Based Toolkit for Automotive Applications
The success of a number of projects has been shown to be significantly
improved by the use of a formalism. However, there remains an open issue: to
what extent can a development process based on a singular formal notation and
method succeed. The majority of approaches demonstrate a low level of
flexibility by attempting to use a single notation to express all of the
different aspects encountered in software development. Often, these approaches
leave a number of scalability issues open. We prefer a more eclectic approach.
In our experience, the use of a formalism-based toolkit with adequate notations
for each development phase is a viable solution. Following this principle, any
specific notation is used only where and when it is really suitable and not
necessarily over the entire software lifecycle. The approach explored in this
article is perhaps slowly emerging in practice - we hope to accelerate its
adoption. However, the major challenge is still finding the best way to
instantiate it for each specific application scenario. In this work, we
describe a development process and method for automotive applications which
consists of five phases. The process recognizes the need for having adequate
(and tailored) notations (Problem Frames, Requirements State Machine Language,
and Event-B) for each development phase as well as direct traceability between
the documents produced during each phase. This allows for a stepwise
verification/validation of the system under development. The ideas for the
formal development method have evolved over two significant case studies
carried out in the DEPLOY project
An Exploratory Study of Forces and Frictions affecting Large-Scale Model-Driven Development
In this paper, we investigate model-driven engineering, reporting on an
exploratory case-study conducted at a large automotive company. The study
consisted of interviews with 20 engineers and managers working in different
roles. We found that, in the context of a large organization, contextual forces
dominate the cognitive issues of using model-driven technology. The four forces
we identified that are likely independent of the particular abstractions chosen
as the basis of software development are the need for diffing in software
product lines, the needs for problem-specific languages and types, the need for
live modeling in exploratory activities, and the need for point-to-point
traceability between artifacts. We also identified triggers of accidental
complexity, which we refer to as points of friction introduced by languages and
tools. Examples of the friction points identified are insufficient support for
model diffing, point-to-point traceability, and model changes at runtime.Comment: To appear in proceedings of MODELS 2012, LNCS Springe
Safety-Critical Systems and Agile Development: A Mapping Study
In the last decades, agile methods had a huge impact on how software is
developed. In many cases, this has led to significant benefits, such as quality
and speed of software deliveries to customers. However, safety-critical systems
have widely been dismissed from benefiting from agile methods. Products that
include safety critical aspects are therefore faced with a situation in which
the development of safety-critical parts can significantly limit the potential
speed-up through agile methods, for the full product, but also in the
non-safety critical parts. For such products, the ability to develop
safety-critical software in an agile way will generate a competitive advantage.
In order to enable future research in this important area, we present in this
paper a mapping of the current state of practice based on {a mixed method
approach}. Starting from a workshop with experts from six large Swedish product
development companies we develop a lens for our analysis. We then present a
systematic mapping study on safety-critical systems and agile development
through this lens in order to map potential benefits, challenges, and solution
candidates for guiding future research.Comment: Accepted at Euromicro Conf. on Software Engineering and Advanced
Applications 2018, Prague, Czech Republi
SysML for embedded automotive Systems: lessons learned
International audienceThis paper deals with the first lessons learned from using the SysML language to support the System Engineering activities when developing automotive embedded systems and products with a particular focus on illustrating improvement solutions that have been experimented and validated in Valeo pilot projects
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