European initiative to boost embedded systems industry competitiveness

MUNICH, Germany — A group of European companies and research institutions, part funded by the European Commission, has launched an initiative, dubbed SPEEDS (Speculative and Exploratory Design in Systems Engineering), that aims to define a standard methodology for the creation embedded systems designs.

The SPEEDS initiative is, as a so called integrated project, part of the European Union's sixth Framework Program for funding technology and scientific projects. It is a concerted effort to define a standard, end-to-end framework for the implementation of next generation concepts, methodologies, processes, technologies and tools for the design of embedded systems.

The initiative's aim is also to provide an environment that will foster greater collaboration between European companies of all sizes involved in embedded systems markets and widen access for smaller companies to leading edge tools and techniques by means of an open-source framework that includes interfaces and formal method descriptions, consortium coordinator Gert Döhmen from member company Airbus Germany told EE Times .

Another purpose of the initiative is to improve Europe’s competitiveness in embedded systems design in key industry sectors such as automotive, avionics, space and industrial control – all markets that are fiercely competitive in a global context.

The workflow to be developed by the initiative is set to reduce development costs of safety-critical embedded systems by 60 percent and development time by 40 percent, the initiative announced. Further targets are maintaining or improving quality standards and managing the increasing design complexity. Initially, the environment to be created will be restricted to four development environments – Simulink Matlab, I-Logix Rhapsody, TNI Software RT Builder and Esterel's Scade. But over time, Döhmen asserted, the environment will be accessible from any development environment due to its open source approach.

The initiative has a budget of € 16 million ($ 20 million), of which the EU contributes € 9 million. According to its creators, it is intended to ease the engineer's task this by enabling component-based construction of complete virtual system models, allowing early analysis of non-functional design constraints, virtual system integration, co-analysis and the concept of hosted simulation.

In order to achieve compatibility and interoperability, the approach will integrate existing modelling standards including UML, SysML and Autosar as well as DO-178C certification requirements. In addition the SPEEDS meta model will be inserted into existing and emerging standards of the Object Management Group (OMG).

The 16-member initiative comprises some of Europe's best known enterprises and research institutions, including Airbus, Daimler Chrysler, Esterel Technologies, Institut National de Récherche en Informatique et en Automatique, Israel Aircraft Industries, Knorr Bremse, Magna Powertrain, Robert Bosch, Saab, TNI-Software and Université Joseph Fourier Grenoble. The project is set to be completed by April 2009, Döhmen said.