Industrial Requirements in Development of Embedded Real-Time Systems -Interviews with Senior Designers

The area of embedded real-time systems is undergoing changes. More and more of traditional mechanical solutions are being replaced with computer-controlled systems. In this paper, we aim at capturing the industrial viewpoint of today’s and future requirements in developing embedded real-time systems. We do this by a number of interviews with ten senior designers at four Swedish companies developing embedded applications. The study shows that developers of embedded real-time systems strive for simplicity. The main goal in developing these systems is that they are, and perceived by customers as, reliable and safe. However, the complexity of the systems is ever increasing, at the same time as the safety requirements are believed to increase in importance. The interviewees believe that in order to develop these kind of safe and reliable systems, during an increasingly complexity, there has to be tool support for development and verifications of the systems. The main support in tools is sought in the areas of model-based development and verification.