Together with its European research partners, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland has developed new methods and tools for the development of embedded systems. The aircraft, car, industrial automation, electronics and telecommunications industries in particular can benefit from methods for the development of even safer systems than before.
The challenge for the future posed by embedded systems is to reduce costs, improve quality and bring new products to market faster than before. A methodology that supports the development of embedded systems was developed in a pan-European research project. The methodology provides a modelling process that supports platform-based development and a modelling language and modelling techniques for the modelling of applications and the platform. In addition, the methodology provides methods and tools for the evaluation of the quality of embedded systems already during the design phase. The study also specified an integrated development environment that provides its users with methods for transforming models from one form into another as one moves from one stage of development to another, as well as with the opportunity of tracing the design results from requirements to implementation or vice versa.
The new methodology, including a set of methods and tools, is suitable for the development of various types of embedded systems. The architectural style created by the researchers ensures broad applicability because the style can be applied in different application fields. Furthermore, the reference architecture template provides a set of pre-defined core services and domain-specific services for the implementation of the execution platform.