testableandadaptablearchitecturesforembeddedsystems.docVIP

Testable and Adaptable Architectures for Embedded Systems Nary Subramanian Lawrence Chung Firmware Engineer Department of Computer Science Anritsu Company, Richardson, TX University of Texas, Dallas narayanan.subramanian@ chung@ ABSTRACT Testability and adaptability are often crucial to just about any embedded software systems in order to ensure that such systems can run free of errors and at the same time evolve itself according to the environmental changes. As such, these non-functional requirements (NFRs) should be properly taken into consideration during software architectural design before committing to a detailed design or implementation. We propose a process framework for developing software architectures that enhance testability and adaptability, while taking into consideration the characteristics of embedded systems. Using the framework, the software architect can take one of three different approaches to achieving the goal: develop a testable system first and then make it adaptable, develop an adaptable system first and then make it testable, and develop a both testable and adaptable system at the same time. For each of the three approaches, the architect iteratively refines the notions of testability and adaptability, deploys various techniques for enhancing testability and adaptability as part of the architectural alternatives, and carries out analysis of tradeoffs among the alternatives. These ideas have been effectively used in developing commercial embedded systems - the test and measuring instrument systems that are being used for testing mobile phones. In order to illustrate the ideas, and also as part of further validation, this chapter shows how to develo