Product Line Architectures for Embedded Real-Time Systems

In this paper, we propose the use of product line architectures in order to shorten time to market, cut cost, and to reduce maintenance when developing embedded real-time systems. A development process that supports such an approach, taking the temporal domain into account is also outlined. Moreover, a case study was performed in cooperation with the automotive industry where the product-line architecture approach has been successfully applied. Although the architectural language used was sufficient for their specific product-line, considerations about future development indicate that the description language must support more flexible constructions. We suggest several mechanisms for modeling functional, as well as temporal flexibility in the architectural description.