Configuration of mechatronic multi product lines

Abstract

For the development of variable systems, software product lines (SPL) are an established way to handle the variability by using feature models. Nevertheless, the configuration of an SPL can be complex, especially if a product line consists of a large number of features. The problem of handling the complexity becomes even more sophisticated if not only software, but also mechatronic systems containing software and hardware components are configured. Besides modeling the software, within a mechatronic system dependencies and associations between software and hardware features need to be considered which further increases the complexity. To handle this complexity in product lines for mechatronic systems, we propose a multi product line (MPL) approach which allows to distinguish between software and hardware by using different feature models for each. In addition we introduce a level of abstraction to complex product lines consisting of multiple feature models by establishing a feature model mapping. In this paper we present details to the mapping to provide an abstract configuration view as well as the introduced associations for our MPL approach.