Engineering Development Process Research Articles

A component‐based development process for trustworthy systems

SUMMARYThis paper introduces a new process for a rigorous component‐centered development of trustworthy systems. The rationale for our perspective of the process is two‐fold. The activities prescribed in a conventional software engineering development process are neither suitable nor sufficient for developing component‐based systems. Component‐based development methods that are currently practised do not support the explicit specification of trustworthiness properties, and are not based on rigorous principles. Hence they are not suitable for developing trustworthy systems. Trustworthiness is regarded as a composite nonfunctional property comprising the four attributes safety, security, availability, and reliability. They must be rigorously defined for components and systems composed from them. It is essential that the process enforces a direct evidence of trustworthiness in the systems that are developed following the process. Consequently, the development process, in addition to being reuse‐oriented, component‐oriented, and rigorous in all phases of the system lifecycle, should maintain the chain of evidence that the trustworthiness properties are preserved in every activity of every phase of system development. The proposed process includes several parallel interrelated tracks including component development, component assessment, component reuse, and component‐based system development and prescribes specific activities and tools for ensuring trustworthiness in all activities. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

An inheritance system for structural & behavioral reuse in component-based software programming

In the context of Component-based Programming, which addresses the implementation stage of a component-based software engineering development process, this paper describes a specification and an operational integration of an inheritance system into a self-contained new component-based programming language named Compo. Our proposal completes and extends related works by making it possible to apply inheritance to the full description of components, i.e. both to structural (description of provisions and requirements, of component architecture) and behavioral (full implementations of services) parts in component descriptions. Inheritance in Compo is designed to be used in conjunction with composition to maximize reuse capabilities and expressive power. Compo implementation proposes a clear operational solution for inheritance and for achieving and testing substitutions.

4.4.2 MBSE Feasibility Study to improve PLM Business Solution System Specification and Design

AbstractAmbiguous requirements are the main cause of failure in PLM business solution applications development. SysML used in a Model‐Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) development process can mitigate this primary source of error. MBSE moves system engineering practices from document‐centric to model‐centric approach in which the model becomes the primary systems engineering artefact to represent system specification and design. The adoption of this new approach requires careful consideration of the cultural change, adequate training, and a new methodology.This paper describes the feasibility study, results and lesson learned on the MBSE maturity acquired in Alenia Aermacchi Information System and Engineering departments applying MBSE to Product Life‐Cycle Management (PLM) and Document Management. It is based on the University of Salento expertise about modelling languages and on the Alenia Aermacchi experience on System Engineering. SysML has been used as standard language, IBM Harmony Methodology as system engineering methodology and IBM Rhapsody as modelling tool.

A Systematic Survey of Games Used for Software Engineering Education

Simsoft is a serious game— one that trains or educates— at the centre of a research project designed to see if and how games can contribute to better software engineering management education by helping software engineers and project managers explore some of the dynamic complexities of the field in a safe and inexpensive environment. A necessary precursor for this project was to establish what games already existed in the field and how effective they had been. To this end a systematic review of the literature was conducted using a collection of online science, engineering, education, and business databases looking for games or simulations used for educational or training purposes in software engineering or software project management across any of the SWEBOK knowledge areas. The initial search returned 243 results, which was filtered to 36 papers by applying some simple quality and relevance inclusion/exclusion criteria. These remaining papers were then analysed in more depth to see if and how they promoted education in the field of software engineering management. The results showed that games were mainly used in the SWEBOK knowledge areas of software engineering management and development processes, and most game activity was in Europe and the Americas. The results also showed that most games in the field have learning objectives pitched at the first rung of Bloom’s taxonomy (knowledge), most studies followed a non-experimental design, and many had very small sample sizes. This suggests that more rigorous research is needed into the efficacy of games in teaching software engineering management, but enough evidence exists to say that educators could include serious games in their courses as a useful and interesting supplement to other teaching methods.

An inexpensive estimate of failure probability for high-dimensional systems with uncertainty

The failure probability of a system at an uncertain state can be estimated within a precise confidence interval using the Monte-Carlo sampling technique. Using this approach, the number of system parameters may be arbitrarily large, and the system may be non-linear and subject to random noise. For a given confidence level and interval, the number of required simulations can be exactly computed using the Beta Distribution. When failure probabilities are on the order of 1–10%, this technique becomes very inexpensive. In particular, 100 simulations are always sufficient for a failure estimate with a confidence interval of +/−10% at a 95% confidence level.In an engineering development process, this estimate limits the number of trials required to assess the robustness or reliability of high-dimensional and non-linear systems. When simulations are expensive, for example in vehicle crash development, using such a rule to minimize the number of trials can greatly reduce the expense and time invested in development.

An Analysis of Process Characteristics for Developing Scientific Software

The development of scientific software is usually carried out by a scientist who has little professional training as a software developer. Concerns exist that such development produces low-quality products, leading to low-quality science. These concerns have led to recommendations and the imposition of software engineering development processes and standards on the scientists. This paper utilizes different frameworks to investigate and map characteristics of the scientific software development environment to the assumptions made in plan-driven software development methods and agile software development methods. This mapping exposes a mismatch between the needs and goals of scientific software development and the assumptions and goals of well-known software engineering development processes.

MAPPING ENGINEERING DEVELOPMENT PROCESSES FOR PROCESS IMPROVEMENT

Integrating human factors considerations into the design of production systems can improve productivity and quality results while reducing injury risks to system operators. The researchers are currently conducting an action research study with a Canadian electronics manufacturer to improve their production system design process (PSDP), and thereby their production systems, by integrating human factors (HF). One of the first requirements is a clear understanding of the PSDP as a means of identifying and coordinating process improvements. Since there is no accepted approach to PSDP ‘mapping’, methodological development is needed. A proposed methodology for assessment of PSDPs is described. Data collection includes a combination of interview, observational, and document sources. Analysis uses a general inductive approach to develop a process ‘map’. Mapping options to be assessed for utility include decision trees, cross-functional diagrams, actor-network analyses and concept maps. The developed map will then be verified by company personnel and subsequently used in developmental workshops to help the design team identify possible process improvements. As part of the ‘action research’ methodology, researchers will make observations and field notes to better understand how such process maps can best be created and communicated to company personnel. Challenges include gaining access to confidential company data, and experience shows that the active participation of company personnel in data collection speeds and enhances this process. The utility of the PSDP maps to support process improvement efforts remains to be studied.

The Study on Software Interface Art Design Based on Engineering Methods

The article described software design need to be from user's point of view, the key in software developing and interface design is not using what kind of development tools, but by using which kind of thinking and program theory to guide the design. Design thought and methods finally determine success and quality of design. Emphasizes that aping functional art design methods to engineering development process, discussed the application ways of the engineering development methods in software interface of art design. Emphasizes the significance of artistic thought in the software interface design, and points out that logical design process is basic condition & effective ways to achieve the desired interface art design.

6.6.1 Using MBSE with SysML Parametrics to Perform Requirements Analysis

AbstractRequirements are attributed as a common cause of failure in system development. Not only are text requirements ambiguous, the domain conditions under which they are to be satisfied are vague. Until operating conditions and requirements are formally captured, they will continue to be vague with ill‐defined verification criteria. SysML used in a Model‐Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) development process can enable mitigation of this primary source of error. By representing the system under design and its operating environment as a composite SysML model with parametric diagrams, requirements can be formalized in a precise manner. Formalization of requirements and constraints with parametric diagrams enables them to be verified and flowed down during the development process. An example will be used to illustrate how parametric diagrams can be used to develop requirements and constraints.

Study on the Platform of Engine Product Development

View of the current engine product development problems (such as lack of integrity, long development cycle, low efficiency and high cost), in order to enhance comprehensive engine development capability, system and process of engine development was studied in this paper. Engine development work platform was established based on development process, and engine development information platform based on database and knowledgebase. With a deep analysis and study of these two platforms, engine development system platform was established in combination of theory of concurrent engineering. The results show that this platform can reduce product development cycle and cost, control product quality, and enhance the flexibility of product development process.

Diesel Engine Emissions Reduction Using Particle Swarm Optimization

This study implemented a particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm to accelerate the engine development process in order to achieve low emissions. The PSO algorithm is a stochastic, population-based evolutionary optimization algorithm. In this study, PSO was integrated with diesel engine experiments to reduce emissions while maintaining high fuel efficiency. A merit function was defined to help reduce multiple emissions simultaneously. Engine operations using both single- and double-injection strategies were optimized. The present PSO algorithm was found to be very effective in finding the favorable operating conditions for low emissions. The optimization usually took 40–70 experimental runs to find the most favorable operating conditions under the constraints specified in the present testing. High EGR levels, small pilot amount, and late main injection were suggested by the PSO. Multiple emissions were reduced simultaneously without a compromise in the brake specific fuel consumption. In a favorable case that produced low emissions in this study, the NOx and PM emissions were reduced to as low as 0.41 and 0.0092 g/kW-h, respectively. The operating conditions at this point were 34% EGR, 5 ATDC main SOI, −24 ATDC pilot SOI, and 5% pilot fuel.

DESIGN AND MODELING IN THE SOFTWARE PERFORMANCE ENGINEERING DEVELOPMENT PROCESS

Performance related problems are becoming more and more strategic in the software development, especially recently with the advent of Web Services and related business-oriented composition techniques (software as a service, Web 2.0, orchestration, choreography, etc.). In particular, an early integration of performance specifications in the SDP has been recognized during the last few years as an effective approach to improve the overall quality of a software. The goal of our work is the definition of a software development process that integrates performance evaluation and prediction. The software performance engineering development process (SPEDP) we specify is focused on performance, which plays a key role driving the software development process, thus implementing a performance/QoS-driven (software) development process. More specifically, in this paper our aim is to formally define the SPEDP design process, posing particular interest on the basis, on the first step of SPEDP, the software/system architecture design, modeling and/or representation. We define both the diagrams to use and show how to model the structure of the software architecture, its behavior and performance requirements. This is the first mandatory step for the automation of the SPEDP into a specific tool, which we have partially implemented as a performance plug-in for ArgoUML, ArgoPerformance.

Implementation of the Software Performance Engineering Development Process

Performance related problems play a key role in the Software Development Process (SDP). In order to evaluate the performance of a software architecture we defined and implemented a technique mapping the initial UML model into a performance model afterwards analyzed, implemented into the ArgoPerformance tool. To be interpreted by a computing system it is necessary to make such technique unambiguous. Therefore, it becomes mandatory to define the software architecture representation by carefully specifying its syntax and semantics. The goal of this paper is to specify the representation guidelines for specifying ArgoPerformance compliant models. With this aim, we firstly specify the design process into the software performance engineering development process (SPEDP) , posing particular interest on the software architecture representation. Then, by characterizing the SPEDP into the UML domain, we identify and define rules and guidelines for specifying a UML-ArgoPerformance compliant model. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the overall technique an example taken from literature is evaluated through ArgoPerformance.

A comparative introduction to CSP and ACT-ONE formal languages

Formal Methods have changed software engineering development process. They have been used in implementation of software for safety-critical environments. Formal specification languages have good properties for describing a system. ACT-ONE and Communicating Sequential Process (CSP) are two specification languages we have discussed on them in this paper. This paper compares them from different aspects such as their styles, special symbols, databases, and combination with other languages. As future work, we will present a new formal model for a distributed system in our next research.

Assessment of diesel combustion noise overall level in transient operation

Combustion noise in passenger cars powered with direct injection (DI) diesel engines is frequently the main reason why end-users are reluctant to drive this type of vehicle. Thus, the great potential of diesel engines for environment preservation — due to their lower CO2 emissions — could be missed. This situation worsens with the current design trends (engine downsizing) and the emerging new diesel combustion concepts (Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition-HCCI, Premixed Charge Compression Ignition-PCCI, etc.), which are intrinsically noisy. This negative feature can be even more critical in transient operation due to the contribution of the temporal changes of both source and transmission path on engine noise. Therefore, combustion noise must be considered as an additional essential factor in engine development, together with performance, emissions and driveability. Thus, suitable evaluation procedures that can be integrated into the global engine development process in a timely and cost-effective manner are imperative. Regarding the evaluation procedures, most of the work available in the literature addressed combustion noise at steady operation. To surpass this limitation, two possible approaches — adapted from the classical and multiple regression methods — for the overall level assessment of combustion noise in transient conditions are evaluated in this paper.

Phenomenological models for pre-calculation of the combustion in gas engines

The engine cycle simulation remains a very important tool for increasing the efficiency of the engine development process. Consequently, two combustion models for lean-burning gas engines based on phenomenological approaches were developed at the Institute for Internal Com bustion Engines (LVK — Lehrstuhl fur Verbrennungskraftma schinen) at the Technische Universitat Munchen in the FVV research project No. 874. The goal was to model in detail the physical and chemical processes involved in combustion to enhance the applicability of the models and deepen our understanding of the interrelation ship of the complex processes that occur within an engine. The first model describes the combustion within spark-ignition open combustion chambers and the second one depicts the combustion in pre-chamber gas engines.

GvSOS: A New Client for the OGC® Sensor Observation Service Interface Standard

AbstractA key problem with sensor networks is achieving interoperability between different networks potentially built using different software and hardware platforms. Services interfaced by the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) specifications allow GIS clients to access geospatial data without knowing the details about how these data are gathered or stored. Currently, OGC is working on a set of interoperable interfaces and metadata encodings known as Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) that enables the integration of heterogeneous sensor systems and measurements into geospatial information infrastructures. In this article we present the implementation of gvSOS, a new module for gvSIG to connect to Sensor Observation Services (SOS). The gvSOS client module allows gvSIG users to interact with SOS servers, displaying the information gathered by sensors as a layer composed by features. We present the software engineering development process followed to build the module. For each step of the process we specify the main obstacles found during the development such as restrictions of the gvSIG architecture, inaccuracies in the OGC specifications, and a set of common problems found in current SOS server implementations available on the Internet. For most of the problems found we propose a solution, or at least we present a path that might lead to it.

0D Modelling: a Promising Means for After-treatment Issues in Modern Automotive Applications

For modern automotive applications, after-treatment systems have become essential to respect the new emission standards. All the automotive world's attention is focused on catalysis systems because they seem to be one of the best ways to reach the future standards. As a result, after-treatment issues are more and more significant in the cost of the whole engine and vehicle development process. For example, the Euro 6 Diesel after-treatment line might for some applications be composed of nothing less than five distinct after-treatment bricks. This complex architecture implies developing advanced tools to help the exhaust line conception and also the design of associated control strategies. The present paper demonstrates that zero-dimensional (0D) simulation can be a relevant approach to develop exhaust line simulators compatible with accuracy and CPU time required performances. This paper proposes an original zero-dimensional model of the monolith. This approach is based on resistive and capacitive elements according to the bond graph theory [Karnopp D.C., Margolis D.L., Rosenberg R.C. (1990) Systems dynamics: a unified approach, Second Edition, John Wiley & Sons, New-York]. The described dynamic model takes into account the pneumatic flow and the thermal behaviour of the monolith. Models of several catalysts are built by plugging this monolith model with some well-known simplified chemical reaction schemes [Koltsakis G.C., Konstandinis P.A., Stamatelos A.M. (1997) Development and application range of mathematical models for 3-way catalytic converters, Appl. Catal. B: Environ. 12, 161-191]. Splitting a monolith model into several elementary zero-dimensional blocks in series allows having a good representation of the specific internal dynamic of one catalyst and to access some local information as in conventional well-known one-dimensional models with low CPU time cost [Koltsakis G.C., Konstandinis P.A., Stamatelos A.M. (1997) Development and application range of mathematical models for 3-way catalytic converters, Appl. Catal. B: Environ. 12, 161-191]. Such an approach can be used as a way to get a phenomenological understanding of the catalytic system, which is known to be a very complex multi-physical system. It also represents a relevant simulation tool for the definition of after-treatment line architecture and pollutant emission control. The approach's potential to deal with all modern after-treatment bodies is illustrated by results for a Three-Way Catalyst (3WC), a Diesel Oxidation Catalyst (DOC), a Lean NOx Trap (LNT) system, a Selective Catalyst Reduction of NOx (SCR) system and a Diesel Particulate Filter (DPF). This ability to give, with a good compromise between accuracy/low CPU time cost, some interesting information to help the development of more and more complex exhaust system makes zero-dimensional simulation relevant.

Simulation Support for Control Issues in the Context of Modern Diesel Air Path Systems

It is now obvious that the air path system will have to increase its performance to manage the in-cylinder conditions required by the combustion process if significant raw emission reduction is expected in Diesel engine applications. This crucial issue means air path evolutions with complex systems including advanced technologies such as Variable Valve Actuation (VVA) or two-stage turbocharging, and engine control capability improvement to optimise accurately the engine behaviour under transient conditions. At this stage of complexity, the engine controllability becomes a first-order factor to be taken into account in the technological orientations. Thanks to a high versatility of engine architecture, good physical trend capabilities and easy coupling with engine control, 0D simulation offers a very interesting support to help such investigations and discriminate the best Diesel air path system solutions. This paper describes how simulation is becoming a key tool to develop the control for various Diesel air path systems before having the corresponding experimental bench available, in order to anticipate the hard issues and begin to assess the controllability of each air path technology at the early stages of the engine development process.

The CO2CRC Otway Project: Overcoming challenges from planning to execution of Australia’s first CCS project

The aim of the CO2CRC Otway Project (Otway) is to demonstrate that carbon capture and storage (CCS) is a viable option for CO2 mitigation under Australian conditions. The Otway Project is Australia’s first demonstration project and is well underway with injection having started in April 2008 and over 23,000 tonnes of CO2 injected by the end of September. Project activities commenced in late 2004 and being the first, faced significant regulatory and execution challenges. In 2005, the emphasis was on feasibility and project development. Following a rigorous technical and consultative approach, the project regulatory permitting process was defined, the site characterisation and risk assessment started and the field implementation organization defined. In 2006 the project focused on reducing the uncertainties and following Front End Engineering Development (FEED) process as part of seeking approval for major expenses. Several technical challenges were faced and dealt with in finalising the new injection well location and the plant design. The monitoring and verification plan was defined and data acquisition for the pre-injection atmospheric, soil gas and water chemistry characteristics started. In 2007, the project entered the execution phase with the successful drilling of a new injection well. A rich data set of cores and logs was collected enhancing the reservoir model and dynamic simulations. Monitoring activities continued and a 3D surfaceseismic and vertical seismic profile (VSP) acquired concurrently to define the pre injection baseline. Through a complex workover operation, the observation well was equipped with an integrated geophysical and geochemical sensor assembly to facilitate collecting monitoring data during injection. Surface installations, such as the process plant and the pipeline were constructed and the system commissioned in readiness to commence injection. At each stage the project faced several non-technical and technical challenges. In overcoming these, valuable insights have been gained and lessons learnt. These have been incorporated in the proposed Australian legislation on CCS and planning for future projects. To date the project has been positively received by the community. Injection has commenced and supported by a rigorous monitoring and modeling program, is well on its way towards gaining public acceptance for CCS under Australian conditions, through a comprehensive community consultation program and safe and successful operations.