Integrated requirements engineering approach for electronic systems and software

Project Information

IREASS

Grant agreement ID: FP4_23729

Project closed

Start date 1 April 1997

End date 30 September 1998

Funded under

• Software Best Practice initiative within the framework of the specific research and technological development programme in the field of Information Technologies, 1994-1998

Total cost € 375 000,00

EU contribution € 375 000,00

Coordinated by

Liebherr-Aerospace Lindenberg
Germany

Objective

Liebherr as an international operating company for aircraft equipment has an essential need to cope with exploding system/software life-cycle costs for safety critical systems. The reduction of this costs, while keeping the quality factors high and in no case degrade safety margins, is regarded as an exercise to be done pretty well, if the company aims to stay in the business of development and production of enhanced aircraft equipment. The key features of aircraft equipment, safety criticality and the dedication to unique aircrafts (no standard systems) do not allow common industrial compromises like minimum effort or workshare transfer into low-wage countries. The only way out of this situation is the definition of a most effective development life cycle, anticipating the technical goal of a fast and error free development process, to deliver quality systems in short time by recognising the commercial need of low costs and short time to market.

THE EXPERIMENT
The experiments main focus is the definition and introduction of dynamic system modelling methods and techniques with integrated tool support. The selection of the appropriate method and tools will mark the starting point of the experiment, followed by an intensive training suite for the systems and software engineers. The requirements engineering process will be accompanied by coaching activities from an organisation with the appropriate knowledge in requirements engineering methods and techniques. The experiment will be finished when having evaluated the results by comparing the experiment overlaid sub-projects with the reference project. The primary objective is to use the dynamic system modelling technique for the behaviour system model and directly link mathematical performance simulation models for early specification validation and rapid prototyping. The ACT/FHS Helicopter Flight Control System project is selected as the underlying baseline project. The project target is to develop a centralised computer COS, collecting control commands from Sensors (pilot stick) and the flight control/management computer for a digital flight control system of the EC-135 Helicopter. These commands are to be correlated and processed for transfer to the actuator control electronic ACE, via fibre distributed special buses. The requirements for the COS shall be developed in conjunction with the process improvement experiment, while the ACE will serve as a reference project, with a conventional requirements engineering approach. About 100 employees are dedicated to electronics development and production, 15 of them are in charge with software. For the ACT/FHS project it is planned to select 11 electronic engineers , 3 for system/project management purposes, 4 hardware designers and a 4 member team for the software development.

EXPECTED IMPACT AND EXPERIENCE
It is expected that the implementation of the integrated requirements engineering approach with systematic method and tool support have a positive impact in significantly reduced software design and coding effort due to sophisticated specification data and faster availability of software due to fewer life cycle iterations. Both effects tend to lower costs and increase the companies maturity and reputation for delivery of high products.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.

• engineering and technology › electrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineering › electronic engineering › control systems
• natural sciences › computer and information sciences › software › software applications › system software
• engineering and technology › electrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineering › electronic engineering › sensors
• engineering and technology › mechanical engineering › vehicle engineering › aerospace engineering › aircraft › rotorcraft
• natural sciences › computer and information sciences › software › software applications › simulation software

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Programme(s)

• FP4-ESSI 2 - Software Best Practice initiative within the framework of the specific research and technological development programme in the field of Information Technologies, 1994-1998

Topic(s)

• 1.28 - Process Improvement Experiments

Call for proposal

Data not available

Funding Scheme

ACM - Preparatory, accompanying and support measures

Coordinator

Liebherr-Aerospace Lindenberg

• EU contribution: No data
• Address: Pfänderstrasse 50-52 ; D-88161 Lindenberg ; Germany
• Total cost: No data