Andreas Johnsen
Development of software-intensive systems such as embedded systems for telecommunications, avionic and automotive occurs under severe quality, schedule and budget constraints.
As the size and complexity of software-intensive systems increase dramatically, the problems originating from the design and specification of the system architecture becomes increasingly significant. Architecture-based development approaches promise to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of software-intensive system development processes by reducing costs and time, while increasing quality. This paradox is partially explained by the fact that the system architecture abstracts away unnecessary details, so that developers can concentrate both on the system as a whole, and on its individual pieces, whether it's the components, the components' interfaces, or connections among components. The use of architecture description languages (ADLs) provides an important basis for verification since it describes how the system should be and behave, in a high level view and in a form where verification steps can be automated. Analysis and formal verification based on architecture specifications allow detection of problems and faults early in the development process, even before the implementation phase, thereby reducing a significant amount of costs and time. Furthermore, test cases derived from the architecture specification can later be applied to the implementation to test the conformance of the implementation with respect to the specification. However, the area of automated testing from specifications still lacks of fundamental answers, in order to ensure that automated verification and validation steps within the development process allow for greater confidence in both the process and the final product. The research focuses on extending the theoretical knowledge within the area of ADLs and automated verification from architecture specifications, where the extensions will be embodied in form of tools and algorithms to enable easy adoption into industrial practice, in the domains of telecommunications, avionic and automotive.
As the size and complexity of software-intensive systems increase dramatically, the problems originating from the design and specification of the system architecture becomes increasingly significant. Architecture-based development approaches promise to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of software-intensive system development processes by reducing costs and time, while increasing quality. This paradox is partially explained by the fact that the system architecture abstracts away unnecessary details, so that developers can concentrate both on the system as a whole, and on its individual pieces, whether it's the components, the components' interfaces, or connections among components. The use of architecture description languages (ADLs) provides an important basis for verification since it describes how the system should be and behave, in a high level view and in a form where verification steps can be automated. Analysis and formal verification based on architecture specifications allow detection of problems and faults early in the development process, even before the implementation phase, thereby reducing a significant amount of costs and time. Furthermore, test cases derived from the architecture specification can later be applied to the implementation to test the conformance of the implementation with respect to the specification. However, the area of automated testing from specifications still lacks of fundamental answers, in order to ensure that automated verification and validation steps within the development process allow for greater confidence in both the process and the final product. The research focuses on extending the theoretical knowledge within the area of ADLs and automated verification from architecture specifications, where the extensions will be embodied in form of tools and algorithms to enable easy adoption into industrial practice, in the domains of telecommunications, avionic and automotive.