Software product line engineering is about producing a set of related products that share more commonalities than
variabilities. Feature models are widely used for variability and commonality management in software product
lines. Feature models are information models where a set of products are represented as a set of features in a
single model. The automated analysis of feature models deals with the computer–aided extraction of information
from feature models. The literature on this topic has contributed with a set of operations, techniques, tools and
empirical results which have not been surveyed until now. This paper provides a comprehensive literature review
on the automated analysis of feature models 20 years after of their invention. This paper contributes by bringing
together previously-disparate streams of work to help shed light on this thriving area. We also present a conceptual
framework to understand the different proposals as well as categorise future contributions. We finally discuss the
different studies and propose some challenges to be faced in the future.CICYT TIN2009-07366CICYT TIN2006-00472Junta de Andalucía TIC-253
