Requirements Engineering

, Volume 10, Issue 2, pp 161–172 | Cite as

Experience of using a lightweight formal specification method for a commercial embedded system product line

Original Article
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Abstract

A simple specification method is introduced and the results of its application to a series of projects in Philips are reported. The method is principally designed to ensure that that every unusual scenario is considered in a systematic way. In practice, this has led to high-quality specifications and accelerated product development. While the straightforward tabular notation used has proved readily understandable to non-technical personnel, it is also a formal method, producing a model of system behaviour as a finite state machine. In this respect, the notation is unusual in being designed to preserve as far as possible a view of the overall system state and how this changes. The notation also features a constraint table which may be described as a kind of spreadsheet for invariants to help define the states of the system.

Keywords

Lightweight formal methods Finite state machines Tabular notations Embedded systems User interface specification 
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Notes

Acknowledgments

CDR project data is included by kind permission of Joop Kerssen, Philips. The anonymous reviewers suggested several changes which improved this article. The author is indebted to Dan Berry for his advice and enthusiasm. Special thanks for their help and co-operation are also due to: Marc Cools and Martine Looymans at Philips; Stefano Fontolan, John Mulcahy, and the engineers at Silicon & Software Systems; Norah Power.

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Copyright information

© Springer-Verlag London Limited 2005

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Knocknagree, Mallow, Co.CorkIreland

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