It is hard to develop and evolve software product-line architectures (PLAs) for large-scale distributed real-time and embedded (DRE) systems. Although certain challenges of PLAs can be addressed by combining model-driven development (MDD) techniques with component frameworks, domain evolution problems remain largely unresolved. In particular, extending or refactoring existing software product-lines to handle unanticipated requirements or better satisfy current requirements requires significant effort. This paper describes techniques for minimizing such impacts on MDDbased PLAs for DRE systems through a case study that shows how a layered architecture and model-to-model transformation tool support can reduce the effort of PLA evolution.
Gan Deng, Gunther Lenz, Douglas C. Schmidt