Cyber-Physical Systems Can Make Emergency Response Smart

This paper from the Humanitarian Technology: Science, Systems and Global Impact 2015 conference proceedings discusses the Smart Emergency Response System prototype built in the context of the SmartAmerica Challenge 2013-2014 by a team of nine organizations led by MathWorks

Mother Baby Discharge Process

Problem/Impact Statement: MMC\u27s 32-bed Mother Baby Unit is experiencing backed up flow due to high volume and patients not being discharged quickly enough. The current average discharge time on Mother Baby and the Newborn Nursery is 1:36pm. The Mother baby unit has 32 beds, is staffed by 8-9 nurses, and has average discharge of 91 patients a week

Three-dimensional conceptual model for service-oriented simulation

In this letter, we propose a novel three-dimensional conceptual model for an emerging service-oriented simulation paradigm. The model can be used as a guideline or an analytic means to find the potential and possible future directions of the current simulation frameworks. In particular, the model inspects the crossover between the disciplines of modeling and simulation, service-orientation, and software/systems engineering. Finally, two specific simulation frameworks are studied as examples.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figures, 3 table, Journal of Zhejiang University SCIENCE A, 2009, 10(8): 1075-108

Modell-basierter Test echt-zeit eingebetteter Systeme im Automobil

Die Forschung im Bereich Software-Aspekte von eingebetteten Systemen wird in naher Zukunft entscheidenden Einfluss auf Industrie-, Markt- und Alltagsleben haben. Das regt die Untersuchung dieses Anwendungsgebietes an. Weiterhin wird die Erstellung eines konsistenten, wiederverwendbaren und gut dokumentierten Modells die wichtigste Aufgabe bei der Entwicklung von eingebetteten Systemen. Designentscheidungen, die früher auf der Kodeebene beschlossen wurden, werden heute zunehmend auf einer höheren Abstraktionsebene getroffen. Außerdem, wenn die Debatte über die Relevanz von Modellen und modellbasierter Entwicklung für die Softwaretechnik zutreffend ist, dann besitzt sie auch Gültigkeit für Aktivitäten der Qualitätssicherung einschließlich Testen. Hiermit wird das Konzept des modellbasierten Testens entwickelt. Heutzutage erfüllen 44% der eingebetteten Systemdesigns 20% der Erwartungen an Funktionalität und Leistung. Das liegt zum Teil daran, dass ein passender Testansatz für funktionale Validierung und Verifikation fehlt. Folglich bezieht sich das in dieser Dissertation besprochene Problem auf den Qualitätssicherungsprozess auf Modellebene, wenn weder Kode noch Hardware existiert. Eine systematische, strukturierte, wiederholbare und möglichst abstrakte Testspezifikation ist der Hauptschwerpunkt dieser Arbeit. Ein weiteres Ziel ist eine Automatisierung des Testprozesses, da diese den Arbeitsaufwand und die Kosten der Entwicklung beträchtlich senken kann. Der Hauptbeitrag dieser Dissertation gilt für Software der eingebetteten Systemen und bezieht sich die eigentliche Breite dieser Arbeit auf Modelle des Softwares, auf deren Grundlage folglich die Systeme gebaut werden. Ein Ansatz für funktionale Black-Box Tests, die auf den Modellen basieren und die selbst auch ein Testmodell darstellen, wurde entwickelt. Dem stehen derzeit verwendete Testmethoden gegenüber, die zweckbestimmte Lösungen für in der Regel spezialisierte Testzusammenhänge darstellen. Die hier vorgeschlagene Testframework wurde in einer MATLAB®/Simulink®/Stateflow®-Umgebung realisiert und trägt den Namen Model-in-the-Loop for Embedded System Test (MiLEST). Das Signalsmerkmals-orientierte Paradigma erlaubt eine abstrakte Beschreibung eines Signals und spricht sowohl die Probleme des fehlenden Verlaufes von Referenzsignalen als auch der systematischen Testdatenauswahl an. Zahlreiche Signalsmerkmale werden identifiziert und klassifiziert, vordefinierte Testmuster helfen, hierarchische Testspezifikationen zu bilden. Dadurch wird die Verarbeitung von diskreten und kontinuierlichen Signalen möglich, so dass das hybride Verhalten des Systems adressiert wird. Das Testen mittels MiLEST beginnt in der Anforderungsphase und geht hinunter auf das Testdurchführungsniveau. Einige Prozessschritte sind automatisiert, wobei die Testdatengenerierung und die Testauswertung zu den wichtigsten zählen. Drei Fallstudien, die auf der Funktionalität des Tempomats basieren, werden vorgestellt. Diese Beispiele entsprechen den Komponententests, Component-in-the-Loop-Tests und Integrationsniveautests. Außerdem, werden die Qualität des Testspezifikationsprozesses, des Testmodells und der resultierenden Testfälle genauer untersucht. Die Testqualitätsmetriken werden dann während der Testkonstruktion und der Testdurchführung angewendet, um einzuschätzen, ob und in welchem Maße sich die vorgeschlagene Methode von bekannten Techniken unterscheidet. Qualitätsgewinn von mindestens 20% wird abgeschätzt. Gedruckte Version im Fraunhofer IRB Verlag [http://www.irb.fraunhofer.de/irb_verlag/] erschienen.Software aspects of embedded systems are expected to have the greatest impact on industry, market and everyday life in the near future. This motivates the investigation of this field. Furthermore, the creation of consistent, reusable, and well-documented models becomes an important stage in the development of embedded systems. Design decisions that used to be made at the code level are increasingly made at a higher level of abstraction. The relevance of models and the efficiency of model-based development have been demonstrated for software engineering. A comparable approach is applicable to quality-assurance activities including testing. The concept of model-based testing is emerging in its application for embedded systems. Nowadays, 44% of embedded system designs meet only 20% of functionality and performance expectations. This is partially attributed to the lack of an appropriate test approach for functional validation and verification. Hence, the problem addressed by this innovation relates to quality-assurance processes at model level, when neither code nor hardware exists. A systematic, structured, and abstract test specification is in the primary focus of the innovation. In addition, automation of the test process is targeted as it can considerably cut the efforts and cost of development. The main contribution of this thesis applies to the software built into embedded systems. In particular, it refers to the software models from which systems are built. An approach to functional black-box testing based on the system models by providing a test model is developed. It is contrasted with the currently applied test methods that form dedicated solutions, usually specialized in a concrete testing context. The test framework proposed herewith, is realized in the MATLAB®/Simulink®/Stateflow® environment and is called Model-in-the-Loop for Embedded System Test (MiLEST). The developed signal-feature – oriented paradigm allows the abstract description of signals and their properties. It addresses the problem of missing reference signal flows as well as the issue of systematic test data selection. Numerous signal features are identified. Furthermore, predefined test patterns help build hierarchical test specifications, which enables a construction of the test specification along modular divide-and-conquer principles. The processing of both discrete and continuous signals is possible, so that the hybrid behavior of embedded systems can be addressed. The testing with MiLEST starts in the requirements phase and goes down to the test execution level. The essential steps in this test process are automated, such as the test data generation and test evaluation to name the most important. Three case studies based on adaptive cruise control are presented. These examples correspond to component, component-in-the-loop, and integration level tests. Moreover, the quality of the test specification process, the test model, and the resulting test cases is investigated in depth. The resulting test quality metrics are applied during the test design and test execution phases so as to assess whether and how the proposed method is more effective than established techniques. A quality gain of at least 20% has been estimated. Printed version available from Fraunhofer IRB Verlag: [http://www.irb.fraunhofer.de/irb_verlag/

Model-based testing for embedded systems

What the experts have to say about Model-Based Testing for Embedded Systems: "This book is exactly what is needed at the exact right time in this fast-growing area. From its beginnings over 10 years ago of deriving tests from UML statecharts, model-based testing has matured into a topic with both breadth and depth. Testing embedded systems is a natural application of MBT, and this book hits the nail exactly on the head. Numerous topics are presented clearly, thoroughly, and concisely in this cutting-edge book. The authors are world-class leading experts in this area and teach us well-use

Contract-Based Design of Embedded Systems Integrating Nominal Behavior and Safety

The distributed design process for safety-critical embedded systems has become an increasingly difficult challenge: Electronic Control Units (ECUs) in vehicles, for instance, participate in many vehicle functions, while each vehicle function, in turn, is spread across several ECUs. Many suppliers participate in systems design and many partial functions are reused from past projects, not always knowing the assumptions at the time of their development. In particular, efficient allocation of safety mechanisms and a sound safety case are difficult tasks for original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). Contract-based development has gained popularity as an approach for supporting distributed development by explicitly annotating assumptions and guarantees to components, but an integrated process covering specification of nominal behavior and safety has not been described so far. We present such an integrated development approach that encompasses the systematic breakdown of nominal system behavior using contracts, the consistent derivation of safety analysis by interpreting several types of contract violations as a specification for failure modes, and the subsequent integration of safety mechanisms that cover these failure modes through safety contracts. The approach equally fits hardware and software and is therefore applicable on the system level. We demonstrate it by an electric drive example. The extensibility of our approach towards Cyber Physical Systems, which compose themselves at runtime, is briefly outlined at the end of the article