ArchItectural Modeling of Embedded Systems (AIMES) (EWI.4877)

Architectures become an increasingly important means for the management of the complexity encountered in IT-products and their development process. This holds especially for Embedded Systems with their complex hardware/software interaction, reactive behavior and high depend-ability constraints.

This research proposal aims at improving the quality of software-intensive Embedded Systems and their development process by improving the system- and software architecting process. It concentrates on the following research issues:

1. how can architectures be modeled (architectural description language),
2. how can architectures be verified (completeness and correctness) and evaluated (quality metrics and their measurement) and
3. how should architectures be developed (architecting process).

In order to achieve these results, the three industrial partners will conduct architecting case studies that concentrate on one of the three research areas mentioned above. As a consequence, this research will be problem-driven and not theoretical. Because the involved groups of the industrial partners work in a pre-development context and concentrate on different markets, the project will be conducted in a pre-competitive sphere. In order to facilitate the exchange and consolidation of ideas and to achieve synergy, the three junior researchers, their industry coaches and the EUT will work in close cooperation. The multi-disciplinary nature of the architecting process is reflected in the individual industrial projects and in the fact that two EUT faculties are involved.