Search Results

Huge Simulink controller models often consists of (almost) identical subsystems, very often resulting from copy-and-paste operations and only slight adaptation of the subsystems by the model engineer. Although this “copy-and-paste” approach might help to achieve initial results very fast, in the long-run such subsystem clones can create considerable problems. Like code clones, model clones increase the effort for testing and maintenance. Model clones also tend to influence the code efficiency and code quality in a negative way in case the Simulink model is used as a basis for code generation. JUST SIMPLIFY is an approach for detecting model clones in a Simulink model automatically based on model metrics calculations. This approach has been implemented in our model metrics and complexity measurement tool M-XRAY. JUST SIMPLIFY allows reducing the effort for model refactoring by avoiding time consuming manual search for model clones.

Model-based software development is a well-established software development process and recognized by ISO26262 [1] as allowing for highly consistent and efficient development. Nevertheless, enhancing a model-based development process in such a way that it is compliant with the ISO26262 safety standard is a challenging task. To achieve ISO26262 compliance, the development team of a safety-related software project faces a multitude of additional requirements for the development process without a corresponding increase of the project budget to fulfill them. The fact that many of the requirements of ISO26262 are defined in a very generic way such that an interpretation is required further hampers their implementation. We propose a 10-step strategy to achieve an ISO26262 compliant model-based software development process. This strategy relates ISO26262 requirements with state-of-the art methods and approaches currently used for model-based software development.

Embedded software in the car is becoming increasingly complex due to the growing number of software-based controller functions and the increasing complexity of the software itself. Model-based development with Simulink combined with TargetLink for automatic code generation helps significantly to improve the quality of the embedded software. The development of large-scale Simulink models in distributed teams is a challenging task, especially when developing safety-critical software that must fulfill requirements stated in the ISO 26262 [1] safety standard. In practice, many questions on how to avoid the pitfalls of distributed model-based development remain open, such as how to define an appropriate model architecture, handle model complexity, and achieve compliance with ISO 26262. The intent of this paper is threefold. Firstly, we summarize those requirements of ISO 26262 that are relevant for developing complex software in a distributed environment.