INTERESTED project making things happen
The computer industry is in hot pursuit of innovative, state-of-the-art systems that can meet its needs for prototyping embedded systems, i.e. special-purpose computer systems designed to perform one or more dedicated functions, often with real-time computing constraints. The INTERESTED ('Interoperable embedded systems: tool-chain for enhanced rapid design, prototyping and code generation') project, supported under the ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) Theme of the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) with nearly EUR 5.4 million in financing, is helping in this endeavour. Launched in January 2008, INTERESTED will make Europe's first ever tool reference development environment a reality. The consortium's goal is to create an integrated and open reference tool chain covering embedded systems and software development. The end result should be a safe, yet highly dependable and efficient, reference tool chain that can cut the cost of use and maintenance by half. The reference tool chain should be available by December 2010, the partners say. The consortium comprises European embedded tool vendors (including the French Atomic Energy Commission and Artisan Software Tools of the UK) and tool users (e.g. Siemens Mobility division of Germany and Magneti Marelli Powertrain of Italy) and a number of industries like aerospace, automotive and railway that will validate the reference tool chain against real-world design needs and applications, and a number of industries like aerospace, automotive and railway. Under the umbrella of the project, the consortium will also offer interoperability with commercial off-the-shelf, open source and in-house embedded design solutions. The INTERESTED tool chain will assimilate embedded tools into three specific design domains: system and software design, networking and execution platform, and timing and code analysis. These domains, according to the partners, cover the full scope of embedded systems and software engineering, such as verification and code generation through networking and RTOS (real-time operating system) execution platforms to hardware-dependent software verification and code generation. 'INTERESTED will facilitate the move from a collection of point tools that individually automate particular functions to a comprehensive reference tool chain of interoperable and integrated tools that supports all the major processes of embedded systems and software development,' explained Eric Bantegnie, head of Esterel Technologies and the project's coordinator. 'This extends from requirements capture [the process of identifying what the client wants], down to the actual integration of the code on target, including verification and validation.' The consortium has been quoted as saying that the reference tool chain will be used primarily by enterprises operating within tight quality control requirements on the development of complex safety and 'mission-critical' embedded systems, which carry out the core processing logic for persistent systems that affect people and enterprises daily, and range from aerospace to automotive systems to financial markets. By and large, such enterprises must meet the terms of formal certification processes including IEC 61508 for industry, IEC 60880 for energy power stations and the forthcoming ISO 26262 automotive safety standard. For his part, Artisan Software Tools CEO James B. Gambrell said: 'The INTERESTED project will meet the tool chain requirements of major European companies across a broad spectrum of industries whose worldwide leadership position increasingly depends on the development of complex embedded systems and software.' Also participating in this project are UNIS (Czech Republic), Symtavision GmbH (Germany), Airbus France SAS (France) and Evidence Srl (Italy).