A software process for the construction of predictable on‐board embedded real‐time systems

The rise of the ‘cheaper, faster, better’ mission paradigm increasingly challenges the industrial development of satellite systems. The novel paradigm will have a profound impact on the production of the real‐time software embedded on board new‐generation systems. This paper contends that a large proportion of the ensuing demands can be satisfied by an iterative and incremental development model revolving around two evolutionary enhancements to the present engineering approach, namely (1) static real‐time analysis as a key ingredient of the software verification process, and (2) an architectural paradigm centred on fixed priority preemptive scheduling. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

软件复用经济学模型比较分析

说明了软件复用经济学模型的主要目的和任务,对目前国际上提出的12个模型进行了比较分析。将复用经济学模型划分为两类：成本收益模型和投资分析模型,并举例介绍了相关类型的模型。对分析的所有模型列表比较,分析了它们的适用情况和异同点,并对领域存在的问题进行了讨论。     

The impact of software evolution and reuse on software quality

This paper presents a case study of a software project in the maintenance phase. The case study was based on a sample of modules, representing about 1.3 million lines of code, from a very large telecommunications system. Software quality models were developed to predict the number of faults expected from the coding through operations phases. Since modules from the prior release were often reused to develop a new release, one model incorporated reuse data as additional independent variables. We compare this model's performance to a similar model without reuse data.Software quality models often have product metrics as the only input data for predicting quality. There is an implicit assumption that all the modules have had a similar development history, so that product attributes are the primary drivers of different quality levels. Reuse of software as components and software evolution do not fit this assumption very well, and consequently, traditional models for such environments may not have adequate accuracy. Focusing on the software maintenance phase, this study demonstrated that reuse data can significantly improve the predictive accuracy of software quality models.     

A model for software reuse

Software reusability is widely believed to be a key to help overcome the ongoing software crisis by improving software productivity and quality. New computer technology and the demands of an advancing society require new and more complicated software. It is unrealistic to expect that every software system can be developed solely reusing existing software; however, software reusability has proven to be a way of enhancing software productivity and quality in different organizations. It is also believed that reuse of code segments alone does not significantly reduce software development effort.By creating reuse support information while software is being developed (when the software is best known to software developers), the reuse effort for both software development and maintenance can be potentially reduced.In this paper, five types of RSI are presented: Semantic Web, Horizontal Web, Vertical Web, Syntactic Web, and Alternative Web. We collectively call these five webs a Quintet Web. The Semantic Web enables software developers to locate a software segment. The Horizontal Web provides a means to reuse a block of soflware along with other types of software from other phases of a development process. The inter-phase integration of software can be performed through this Web. The Vertical Web identifies the vertical relationship of a software block to its operational environment. The Syntactic Web locates all statements in which a variable is used. The Alternative Web provides alternative software blocks that perform an identical operation.A prototype of the Quintet Web is presented.     

A Model-Based Approach to Object-Oriented Software Metrics

The need to improve software productivity and software quality has put forward the research on software metrics technology and the development of software metrics tool to support related activities.To support object-oriented software metrics practice efectively,a model-absed approach to object-oriented software metrics is proposed in this paper.This approach guides the metrics users to adopt the quality metrics model to measure the object-oriented software products .The development of the model can be achieved by using a top-down approach.This approach explicitly proposes the conception of absolute normalization computation and relative normalization computation for a metrics model.Moreover,a generic software metrics tool-Jade Bird Object-Oriented Metrics Tool(JBOOMT)is designed to implement this approach.The parser-based approach adopted by the tool makes the information of the source program accurate and complete for measurement.It supports various customizable hierarchical metrics models and provides a flexible user interface for users to manipulate the models.It also supports absolute and relative normalization mechanisms in different situations.     

Three empirical studies of a software reuse reference model

The contribution of this paper is a reference model for the practice of software reuse. Our research thesis is that software development based upon a software reuse reference model improves quality of products, productivity of processes and product time‐to‐market for many software development enterprises. The definition and investigation of such a model has been carried out using three steps. First, the reference model is developed based on existing software reuse concepts. Second, this reference model is empirically studied using both legacy studies and lessons learned studies. Third, the impact of the reference model on software development productivity, quality, and time‐to‐market is empirically derived. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Execution models for reconfigurable embedded real‐time systems

This paper deals with the verification and assignment into the execution environment of Reconfigurable Control Applications following the Component‐based International Industrial Standard IEC61499. According to this Standard, a Function Block (FB) is an event‐triggered component and an application is an FB network that has to meet temporal properties according to user requirements. If a reconfiguration scenario is applied at run‐time, then the FB network implementing the application is totally changed or modified. To cover all possible cases, we classify such scenarios into three classes and we define an agent‐based architecture designed with nested state machines to automatically handle all possible reconfigurations. To verify and assign Function Blocks corresponding to each reconfiguration scenario into the execution environment, we define an approach based on the exploration of reachability graphs to verify temporal properties. This approach constructs feasible Operating System tasks encoding the FB network that corresponds to each scenario. Therefore, the application is considered as sets of Operating System (OS) tasks where each set is to load in memory when the corresponding reconfiguration scenario is applied by the agent. We developed the tool X ‐Assign supporting these contributions that we apply on the FESTO production system available in our research laboratory. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley and Sons Asia Pte Ltd and Chinese Automatic Control Society     

Feature‐based approach to object‐oriented engineering of applications for reuse

Object‐oriented technology is gaining popularity among software engineers with the goal of building reusable and adaptable software. Unfortunately, however, most methods introduced so far are not domain‐oriented and do not address the issue of reuse directly. For these methods, software reuse is not the primary goal; it is only a by‐product. The feature‐oriented reuse method, FORM, is extended in this paper for improving the object‐oriented engineering of applications for reuse. FORM concentrates on analyzing and modeling commonalities and differences in the applications of a given domain in terms of capability, operating environment, domain technology, and implementation technique features. These features are used to systematically derive objects that are tied to the features, and to develop reusable and adaptable domain architectures. We found that FORM facilitates analysis of variability (and commonality) of software before engineering and implementation start, and with this understanding, adaptability and reusability can be built into software. Feature modeling has been found to be an effective method for identifying and modeling reusable objects. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A study of software reuse in NASA legacy systems

Software reuse is regarded as a highly important factor in reducing development overheads for new software projects; however, much of the literature is concerned with cost and labor savings that reuse brings to industrial software development and little is known about the inherent risks associated with reuse, particularly in the case of mission and safety-critical software systems. We present the preliminary findings of a research project geared toward assessing the impact of risk in National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) legacy software in flight control systems. We introduce the concept of context variables and the impact they have on reuse within these legacy systems as well as the genealogy classification models, which provide a simple, concise method of mapping reuse between families of software projects. This research was conducted at Global Science and Technology, Inc. under NASA grant number NCC0NNG06GI57G.     

嵌入式通信软件开发中的设计模式

设计模式描述了在软件开发过程中经常出现的问题及其解决方案,是软件复用的有效途径.在嵌入式系统软件开发中,设计模式的应用可以提高软件的质量.归纳了一个基于客户机/服务器结构的嵌入式通信软件设计模式,并进行了描述,然后给出了该设计模式的一个实现框架.最后通过一个实例表明该框架可以使嵌入式软件开发人员快速的构建许多不同的嵌入式通信软件.     

Fault‐driven stress testing of distributed real‐time software based on UML models

In a previous article, a stress testing methodology was reported to detect network traffic‐related Real‐Time (RT) faults in distributed RT systems based on the design UML model of a System Under Test (SUT). The stress methodology, referred to as Test LOcation‐driven Stress Testing (TLOST), aimed at increasing the chances of RT failures (violations in RT constraints) associated with a given stress test location (an network or a node under test). As demonstrated and experimented in this article, although TLOST is useful in stress testing different test locations (nodes and network, it does not guarantee to target (test) all RT constraints in an SUT. This is because the durations of message sequences bounded by some RT constraints might never be exercised (covered) by TLOST. A complementary stress test methodology is proposed in this article, which guarantees to target (cover) all RT constraints in an SUT and detect their potential RT faults (if any). Using a case study, this article shows that the new complementary methodology is capable of targeting the RT faults not detected by the previous test methodology. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Verification of real‐time systems design

The main objective of this paper is to present an approach to accomplish verification in the early design phases of a system, which allows us to make the system verification easier, specifically for those systems with timing restrictions. For this purpose we use RT‐UML sequence diagrams in the design phase and we translate these diagrams into timed automata for performing the verification by using model checking techniques. Specifically, we use the Object Management Group's UML Profile for Schedulability, Performance, and Time and from the specifications written using this profile we obtain the corresponding timed automata. The ‘RT‐UML Profile’ is used in conjunction with a very well‐known tool to perform validation and verification of the timing needs, namely, the UPPAAL tool, which is used to simulate and analyze the behaviour of real‐time dynamic systems described by timed automata. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

VB环境下基于类的软件复用技术研究

为提高VB环境下软件开发的效率,研究了软件复用技术,提出了以代码组件为核心的软件复用工程化思想.结合具体应用,详细介绍了VB中类的创建、复用方法,以及基于类的ActiveXDLL代码组件复用技术,同时还对VB中常用的其它代码组件的复用方法进行了简单介绍.研究结果表明,合理利用相关的软件复用技术,可以缩短软件的开发周期,提高软件的开发质量.     

HARTEX—a safe real‐time kernel for distributed computer control systems

A hard real‐time kernel is presented for distributed computer control systems (DCCS), highlighting a number of novel features, such as integrated scheduling of hard and soft real‐time tasks as well as tasks and resources; high‐performance time management supporting safe DCCS operation in a hard real‐time environment; synchronization and communication featuring event notification via vector semaphores and transparent communication through implicit (content‐oriented) message addressing. Conventional queues have been substituted by Boolean vectors and vector processing techniques throughout the kernel, resulting in efficient and highly deterministic behaviour, which is characterized by very low overhead and constant execution time of kernel operations, independent of the number of tasks involved. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Multiprocessor platform for partitioned real‐time systems

Two current trends in the real‐time and embedded systems are the multiprocessor architectures and the partitioning technology that enables several isolated applications with different criticality levels to share the same computer. This paper presents a real‐time platform for multiprocessor and partitioned systems, in which communication requirements are also considered. The paper describes the adaptation of MaRTE OS (a monoprocessor real‐time operating system) to the XtratuM hypervisor for the multiprocessor Intel x86 architecture. This adaptation makes two contributions to ease the development process of future mixed‐criticality applications: firstly, it integrates the hypervisor technology and the fully partitioned scheduling in a multiprocessor environment, and secondly, it provides the basis to interconnect partitioned and non‐partitioned applications via a homogeneous communication subsystem. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

一种面向对象的领域工程方法

介绍了一种面向对象的领域工程方法--"青鸟领域工程方法".领域工程是对一个领域中的若干系统进行分析,识别这些应用的共同特征和可变特征,进行面向复用的开发,产生出特定于领域的构件和构架.领域工程给软件复用提供了有力的支持."青鸟领域工程方法"以" 青鸟面向对象开发方法"为基础,明确规定了领域工程中各个阶段的活动和产品,并针对每个阶段和活动给出了操作指南.     

Developing Java applications for a nuclear fusion experiment: a test case for Java applicability in a demanding environment

The paper describes the experience gained in the development of Java applications in a nuclear fusion experiment. Two Java tools for graphical data display and experiment configuration set‐up are presented as case studies. Based on these tools, the results derived by the application of some metrics for object oriented software and by the analysis of the design patterns imported in the applications are presented to highlight the effective code reuse achieved with Java. The main issues in the applicability of Java in a demanding environment are then introduced and a few weaknesses of the language are finally discussed. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A style for integrating MS‐Windows software applications to client–server systems using Java technology

Developing software systems by integrating the existing applications/systems over the network has become an established and practical technique. The Microsoft (MS) Windows operating systems today support a huge number of software applications. If these commercial applications could be transformed to software components, this may accelerate the construction of new components. This paper proposes an architectural style to support a three‐phase process for integrating MS‐Windows applications in a distributed system using Java technologies. This style provides a solution with clear documentation and sufficient information that is helpful for the rapid integration of MS‐Windows applications. Finally, an exemplary graphical construction part management system that assembles two MS‐Windows applications was developed in this study to demonstrate the feasibility of this style. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The software information base: A server for reuse

We present an experimental software repository system that provides organization, storage, management, and access facilities for reusable software components. The system, intended as part of an applications development environment, supports the representation of information about requirements, designs and implementations of software, and offers facilities for visual presentation of the soft-ware objects. This article details the features and architecture of the repository system, the technical challenges and the choices made for the system development along with a usage scenario that illustrates its functionality. The system has been developed and evaluated within the context of the ITHACA project, a technology integration/software engineering project sponsored by the European Communities through the ESPRIT program, aimed at developing an integrated reuse-centered application development and support environment based on object-oriented techniques.