6 January 2013

Thesis chapter 9: Compositional architecture for embedded platforms

This chapter explores composition architectures for embedded software as precursor for open software ecosystems, i.e. architectures suitable for approach B: Architecture for Composition from chapter 7.
This chapter was submitted as an article to Journal of Systems and Software in 2012.

Abstract

Open software ecosystem are proposed as a sustainable approach to develop software for embedded systems, and the paper elaborates on the necessary properties of an embedded platform and design an architecture to facilitate a successful establishment and growth of ecosystems for embedded software.
The paper defines a set of qualities for an embedded ecosystem platform that are necessary in addition to domain-specific qualities. Based on these 20 key architecture decisions are defined, together with the rationale why they are critical for an open ecosystem platform for embedded systems in general and automotive systems in particular. The decisions constitute together with four architectural patterns a reference for embedded open software ecosystems.
An industrial case of the prototypically implemented architecture, satisfying some of the identified quality attributes, is presented to provide a deeper understanding of how the architecture could be realised in the automotive domain.
Four potential existing platforms, all targeted at the embedded domain (Android, OKL4, AUTOSAR and Robocop), are evaluated against the identified quality attributes to see how they could serve as a basis for an open ecosystem platform with the conclusion that while none of them is a perfect fit they all have fundamental mechanisms necessary for an ecosystem approach.

1 comment:

Bikram said...

Embedded software is becoming increasingly complex. Ebert & Jones show that the size and complexity of software in an embedded product increases exponentially over time. Numbers from Volvo Cars show a similar exponential evolution (seen in figure the figure below), not only for the infotainment software, which resembles mobile phone features, but also for "traditional" vehicle functionality.
click here