Cluster: Modeling and Validation

High-Level Objectives 

The sheer complexity of future embedded devices seriously challenges current development practice; new, integrated and scalable methods are urgently needed. The use of model-driven and component-based approaches are seen as a way of obtaining dependable embedded implementations with high performance and with reduced time and cost. Embedded systems involve monitoring and control of complex physical objects or phenomena using a number of dedicated hardware and software components often within a networked solution.

Brief State of the Art 

Design often involves the use of multiple models that represent different views of a system at different levels of granularity. Some transformations between models can be automated; at other times, the designer must guide the model construction. While the compilation and code generation for functional requirements is often routine, for non-functional requirements, such as timing, the separation of human-guided design decisions from automatic model transformations is not well understood By far the most common validation technique applied in embedded industrial today is based on rather ad-hoc and manual (hence quite error-prone) testing. Given that some 30-50% of the overall development time and cost are related to testing activities it is clear that the impact of improved validation technologies is substantial.

Core participants 

Core participants in the cluster: "Modeling and Validation".

Affiliated Partners 

Main Research Trends  

The need for a scientific foundation for embedded systems dealing simultaneously with software, hardware resources and physical environments have received substantial attention. Emphasis is on quantitative modeling as well as component-based design methodology with the ambition of establishing a coherent family of design flows spanning computer science, control and hardware.

Industrial Sectors Impacted 

The modeling and validation techniques and supporting tools developed and disseminated within the cluster have relevance and potential impact on literally all industrial sectors developing or using embedded systems solutions.