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Publications (10 of 16) Show all publications
Ericsson, N., Åkerberg, J., Björkman, M., Lennvall, T., Larsson, S. & Pei-Breivold, H. (2023). A flexible communication stack design for improved software development on industrial testbeds and simulators. Computers in industry (Print), 147, Article ID 103873.
Open this publication in new window or tab >>A flexible communication stack design for improved software development on industrial testbeds and simulators
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2023 (English)In: Computers in industry (Print), ISSN 0166-3615, E-ISSN 1872-6194, Vol. 147, article id 103873Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

In order to facilitate deterministic behavior; industrial real-time communication stacks need another design than non-real-time communication stacks typically found in e.g., Internet of Things and Cloud solutions. We propose a flexible stack design that enable code reuse between testbeds and simulators, as well as how stack layers are driven and prioritized. The design can be generalized and used for non-real-time bare-metal solutions like battery powered Internet of Things. Our approach aims at extending the use of simulation during development of industrial systems in order to find logical errors and wrong assumptions earlier in the development. Conducted and evaluated experiments show that the proposed solutions are able to extend the use of simulation during development of real-time communication software. This is achieved by reusing the same code on an industrial testbed and in a discrete event simulator. In addition, the experiments show that the stack design is generalizable and enable reuse with other non-real-time embedded systems. The contribution consists of a set of building blocks for real-time systems that enable control over the system timing when executing on a simulation host while reusing the source code from an industrial testbed. Overall, this will improve the engineering situation, with respect to code reuse, flexibility and debugging. © 2023 The Author(s)

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Elsevier B.V., 2023
Keywords
Discrete event simulation, Embedded systems, Interactive computer systems, Internet of things, Real time systems, Software design, Code reuse, Communication stacks, Customized network simulator, Discrete-event simulations, Flexible communication, Flexible stack design, Industrial communications, Network simulators, Real-time communication, Stack designs, Testbeds, Industrial communication, Software development
National Category
Computer Engineering
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:ri:diva-64235 (URN)10.1016/j.compind.2023.103873 (DOI)2-s2.0-85149292015 (Scopus ID)
Note

Correspponging author: Niclas Eriksson, RISE, Sweden

We would like to thank the three anonymous reviewers whose comments significantly helped improve the paper. This work was partially supported by the Knowledge Foundation through the ITS ESS-H industrial graduate school at Mälardalen University under grant 20150277 , the Vinnova funded research projects IoTSP, SALLPI, SALLPI-phase2, ITEA3 IVVES (reference numbers 2015-06741 , 2018-04498 , 2019-04831 , 2019-02383 ), and the DAIS project funded by ECSEL Joint Undertaking (JU) under grant agreement No. 101007273 . The work reflects only the authors’ views; the funding agencies are not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains.

Available from: 2023-03-20 Created: 2023-03-20 Last updated: 2023-03-20Bibliographically approved
Hallmans, D., Sandström, K., Larsson, S. & Nolte, T. (2021). Challenges in providing sustainable analytic of system of systems with long life time. In: 2021 16th International Conference of System of Systems Engineering (SoSE): . Paper presented at 2021 16th International Conference of System of Systems Engineering (SoSE) (pp. 69-74).
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Challenges in providing sustainable analytic of system of systems with long life time
2021 (English)In: 2021 16th International Conference of System of Systems Engineering (SoSE), 2021, p. 69-74Conference paper, Published paper (Refereed)
Abstract [en]

Embedded systems are today often self-sufficient systems with limited communication. However, this traditional view of an embedded system is changing rapidly. Embedded systems are nowadays evolving, e.g., an evolution pushed by the increased functional gain introduced with the concept of System of Systems (SoS) that is connecting multiple subsystems to achieve a combined functionality and/or information of a higher value. In such a SoS the subsystems will have to serve a dual purpose in a) the initial purpose that the subsystem was originally designed and deployed for, e.g., control and protection of the physical assets of a critical infrastructure system that could be up and running for 30-40 years, and b) at the same time provide information to a higher-level system for a potential future increase of system functionality as technology matures and/or new opportunities are provided by, e.g., greater analytics capabilities. In this paper, within the context of a “dual purpose use” of a) and b), we bring up three central challenges related to i) information gathering, ii) life-cycle management, and iii) data governance, and we propose directions for solutions to these challenges that need to be evaluated already at design time.

Keywords
Embedded systems, Data governance, Critical infrastructure, System of systems, SoS, analytics, data gathering, long life time
National Category
Computer Sciences
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:ri:diva-55982 (URN)10.1109/SOSE52739.2021.9497465 (DOI)
Conference
2021 16th International Conference of System of Systems Engineering (SoSE)
Available from: 2021-08-27 Created: 2021-08-27 Last updated: 2021-08-27Bibliographically approved
Hallmans, D., Sandström, K., Larsson, S., Ericsson, N. & Nolte, T. (2021). Design considerations introducing analytics as a “dual use” in complex industrial embedded systems. In: 2021 26th IEEE International Conference on Emerging Technologies and Factory Automation (ETFA ): . Paper presented at 2021 26th IEEE International Conference on Emerging Technologies and Factory Automation (ETFA).7-10 Sept. 2021.
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Design considerations introducing analytics as a “dual use” in complex industrial embedded systems
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2021 (English)In: 2021 26th IEEE International Conference on Emerging Technologies and Factory Automation (ETFA ), 2021Conference paper, Published paper (Refereed)
Abstract [en]

Embedded systems are today often self-sufficient with limited and predefined communication. However, this traditional view of embedded systems is changing through advancements in technologies such as, communication, cloud technologies, and advanced analytics including machine learning. These advancements have increased the benefits of building Systems of Systems (SoS) that can provide a functionality with unique capabilities that none of the included subsystems can accomplish separately. By this gain of functionality the embedded system is evolving towards a “dual use” purpose<sup>1</sup><sup>1</sup>In this paper we define dual usage as a control system having two purposes. In other contexts such as politics, diplomacy and export control, the term “dual-use” refers to technology that can be used for both peaceful and military aims, e.g., nuclear power technology., The use is dual in the sense that the system still needs to handle its original task, e.g., control and protect of an asset, and it must provide information for creating the SoS. Larger installations, e.g., industry plants, power systems and generation, have in most cases a long expected life-cycle, some up to 30–40 years without significant updates, compared to analytical functions that evolve and change much faster, i.e., requiring new types of data sets from the subsystems, not know at its first deployment. This difference in development cycles calls for new solutions supporting updates related to new requirements inherent in analytical functions. In this paper, within the context of “dual usage” of systems and subsystems, we analyze the impact on an embedded system, new or legacy, when it is required to provide analytic data with high quality. We compare a reference system, implementing all functions in one CPU core, to three other alternative solutions: a) a multi-core system where we are using a separate core for analytics, b) using a separate analytics CPU and c) analytics functionality located in a separate subsystem. Our conclusion is that the choice of analytics information collection method should to be based on intended usage, along with resulting complexity and cost of updates compared to hardware cost.

Keywords
Industries, Embedded systems, Costs, Multicore processing, Machine learning, Hardware, Power systems, systems-of-systems, analytics, data gathering, data collection, long life time
National Category
Computer Sciences
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:ri:diva-57444 (URN)10.1109/ETFA45728.2021.9613273 (DOI)
Conference
2021 26th IEEE International Conference on Emerging Technologies and Factory Automation (ETFA).7-10 Sept. 2021
Available from: 2021-12-28 Created: 2021-12-28 Last updated: 2021-12-28Bibliographically approved
Ericsson, N., Åkerberg, J., Björkman, M., Lennvall, T., Larsson, S. & Pei-Breivold, H. (2021). Exploring ways to improve reuse between Industrial Embedded Systems and Discrete Event Simulators. In: 2021 26th IEEE International Conference on Emerging Technologies and Factory Automation (ETFA ): . Paper presented at 2021 26th IEEE International Conference on Emerging Technologies and Factory Automation (ETFA). 7-10 Sept. 2021.
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Exploring ways to improve reuse between Industrial Embedded Systems and Discrete Event Simulators
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2021 (English)In: 2021 26th IEEE International Conference on Emerging Technologies and Factory Automation (ETFA ), 2021Conference paper, Published paper (Refereed)
Abstract [en]

Industrial real-time software is commonly evaluated on real embedded systems, while simulators are less used, since the abstraction level and purpose vary with for example, different programming languages and run-time contexts. This paper extends, applies, and evaluates previous work on a flexible task design that improve code reuse between discrete event simulators and embedded real-time systems. The paper focuses on two parts: (i) The performance cost of the proposed design in practice, by comparing the flexible task design with a traditional threaded approach. (ii) The potential of an alternative way to support legacy code in combination with discrete event simulation. The experiments indicate an almost negligible performance cost with respect to the real-time behavior, i.e., latency and jitter, while enabling improved code reuse between discrete event simulation and industrial embedded real-time systems.

Keywords
Context, Codes, Embedded systems, Costs, Jitter, Real-time systems, Software, software development, task design, run-time context, real-time, flexibility, reusability
National Category
Computer Sciences
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:ri:diva-57447 (URN)10.1109/ETFA45728.2021.9613289 (DOI)
Conference
2021 26th IEEE International Conference on Emerging Technologies and Factory Automation (ETFA). 7-10 Sept. 2021
Available from: 2021-12-28 Created: 2021-12-28 Last updated: 2022-01-07Bibliographically approved
Ericsson, N., Åkerberg, J., Björkman, M., Lennvall, T., Larsson, S. & Pei-Breivold, H. (2021). Improving Code Reuse between Industrial Embedded Systems and Discrete Event Simulators. In: 2021 IEEE 19th International Conference on Industrial Informatics (INDIN): . Paper presented at 2021 IEEE 19th International Conference on Industrial Informatics (INDIN).21-23 July 2021.
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Improving Code Reuse between Industrial Embedded Systems and Discrete Event Simulators
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2021 (English)In: 2021 IEEE 19th International Conference on Industrial Informatics (INDIN), 2021Conference paper, Published paper (Refereed)
Abstract [en]

Most evaluations of industrial real-time software are conducted on real embedded systems. The use of simulators that provides easily reproducible evaluations is often limited, due to different levels of abstraction, e.g., programming languages and run-time contexts. This paper extends previous work on a flexible task design, enabling tasks to be agnostic to run-time context, with evaluations conducted on bare-metal and real-time operating systems. Based on the same design and experiments we extend the proof-of-concept implementation in a discrete event simulation context, executing on a Windows based simulation host. Our experiments show that the flexible task design can be driven in a simulation run-time context, and still support typical industrial constructs. The result indicates that improved code reuse between discrete event simulators and industrial embedded systems is feasible.

Keywords
Computer languages, Embedded systems, Codes, Conferences, Software, Real-time systems, Discrete event simulation, software development, task design, run-time context, real-time, flexibility, reusability, evolvability
National Category
Computer Sciences
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:ri:diva-57446 (URN)10.1109/INDIN45523.2021.9557535 (DOI)
Conference
2021 IEEE 19th International Conference on Industrial Informatics (INDIN).21-23 July 2021
Available from: 2021-12-28 Created: 2021-12-28 Last updated: 2021-12-28Bibliographically approved
Ericsson, N., Åkerberg, J., Bjorkman, M., Lennvall, T., Larsson, S. & Pei-Breivold, H. (2020). A Flexible Task Design for Industrial Embedded Systems. In: IECON 2020 The 46th Annual Conference of the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society: . Paper presented at 46th Annual Conference of the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society, IECON 2020, 19 October 2020 through 21 October 2020 (pp. 2143-2148). IEEE Computer Society
Open this publication in new window or tab >>A Flexible Task Design for Industrial Embedded Systems
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2020 (English)In: IECON 2020 The 46th Annual Conference of the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society, IEEE Computer Society , 2020, p. 2143-2148Conference paper, Published paper (Refereed)
Abstract [en]

The run-time context in industrial embedded systems varies from bare-metal microcontrollers, to multicore-processors running real-time operating systems. Due to the longevity of industrial systems, reusability and evolvability are often considered crucial quality attributes. This paper presents a new flexible task design that enables tasks to be agnostic to run-time context. Evaluations of the design were made by conducting experiments using a proof of concept implementation of the proposed design. The experiments were based on typical industrial constructs, such as periodic tasks, and event signaling from interrupts. Findings from the experiments show that tasks can be more agnostic to run-time context and still deliver functionality normally used within industry. The results indicate that it is feasible to improve reusability and evolvability between different run-time contexts, and in addition, support hybrid configurations that can reduce resource usage, since e.g. a thread can be easily shared among several tasks.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
IEEE Computer Society, 2020
Keywords
evolvability, flexibility, real-time, reusability, run-time context, software development, task design, Computer operating systems, Embedded systems, Industrial electronics, Hybrid configurations, Industrial systems, Multi-core processor, Periodic tasks, Proof of concept, Quality attributes, Real time operating system, Resource usage, Real time systems
National Category
Natural Sciences
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:ri:diva-51951 (URN)10.1109/IECON43393.2020.9254835 (DOI)2-s2.0-85097751138 (Scopus ID)9781728154145 (ISBN)
Conference
46th Annual Conference of the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society, IECON 2020, 19 October 2020 through 21 October 2020
Available from: 2021-01-22 Created: 2021-01-22 Last updated: 2021-06-16Bibliographically approved
Larsson, S., Harlin, U., Winzenburg, S. & Edström, A. (2020). Färdplan: Teknik, material och förmågor för hållbar industriell konkurrenskraft.
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Färdplan: Teknik, material och förmågor för hållbar industriell konkurrenskraft
2020 (Swedish)Report (Other academic)
Publisher
p. 8
Series
RISE Rapport ; 2020:46
National Category
Business Administration Engineering and Technology Electrical Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Information Engineering
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:ri:diva-44978 (URN)978-91-89167-28-5 (ISBN)
Funder
Vinnova
Note

En analys av den svenska industrins behov av kontinuerlig digitalisering, materialomställning, innovations- och transformationsförmåga samt kompetensförsörjning, i nuläget och 15 år framöver. Utförd av RISE med finansiering och stöd från Teknikföretagen och Vinnova.Version 1.0. Lanserad 6 maj 2020.En förkkortad sammanställning av denna rapport i form av en broschyr finns på länken:

http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:ri:diva-44967

Available from: 2020-05-08 Created: 2020-05-08 Last updated: 2023-06-08Bibliographically approved
Larsson, S., Harlin, U., Winzenburg, S. & Edström, A. (2020). Färdplan: Teknik, material och förmågor för hållbar industriell konkurrenskraft (Broschyr). RISE Reasearch Institutes of Sweden
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Färdplan: Teknik, material och förmågor för hållbar industriell konkurrenskraft (Broschyr)
2020 (Swedish)Other (Other academic)
Abstract [sv]

De närmaste 15 åren kommer svenskindustri att med förnyad kraft fortsätta sin digitala omställning, ta tillsig en rad nya material, utveckla nyaaffärsmodeller och öka sin transformationsförmåga. Allt för att stärkasin konkurrenskraft, i symbios medhållbarhet – ekonomisk, ekologisk ochsocial. Coronapandemin medför förvisso enorma utmaningar för industrin,men efter den akuta kris hanteringenkommer med all sannolikhetindustriomställningen att ta ny fart.

Denna broschyr är en förkortad sammanställning av RISE rapport 2020:46 som finns på länken:http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:ri:diva-44978

Place, publisher, year, pages
RISE Reasearch Institutes of Sweden, 2020. p. 20
National Category
Business Administration Engineering and Technology Electrical Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Information Engineering
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:ri:diva-44967 (URN)
Note

Denna broschyr är en förkortad sammanställning av RISE rapport 2020:46. Se hela rapporten på: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:ri:diva-44978

En analys av den svenska industrins behov av kontinuerlig digitalisering, materialomställning, innovations- och transformationsförmåga samt kompetensförsörjning, i nuläget och 15 år framöver. Utförd av RISE med finansiering och stöd från Teknikföretagen och Vinnova.

Available from: 2020-05-08 Created: 2020-05-08 Last updated: 2023-06-08Bibliographically approved
Tahvili, S., Bohlin, M., Saadatmand, M., Larsson, S., Afzal, W. & Sundmark, D. (2016). Cost-Benefit Analysis of Using Dependency Knowledge at Integration Testing (7ed.). In: Pekka Abrahamsson, Andreas Jedlitschka, Anh Nguyen Duc, Michael Felderer, Sousuke Amasaki, Tommi Mikkonen (Ed.), Product-Focused Software Process Improvement: . Paper presented at 17th International Conference on Product-Focused Software Process Improvement (PROFES 2016), November 22 – 24, 2016, Trondheim, Norway (pp. 268-284). , 10027
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Cost-Benefit Analysis of Using Dependency Knowledge at Integration Testing
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2016 (English)In: Product-Focused Software Process Improvement / [ed] Pekka Abrahamsson, Andreas Jedlitschka, Anh Nguyen Duc, Michael Felderer, Sousuke Amasaki, Tommi Mikkonen, 2016, 7, Vol. 10027, p. 268-284Conference paper, Published paper (Refereed)
Abstract [en]

In software system development, testing can take considerable time and resources, and there are numerous examples in the literature of how to improve the testing process. In particular, methods for selection and prioritization of test cases can play a critical role in efficient use of testing resources. This paper focuses on the problem of selection and ordering of integration-level test cases. Integration testing is performed to evaluate the correctness of several units in composition. Further, for reasons of both effectiveness and safety, many embedded systems are still tested manually. To this end, we propose a process, supported by an online decision support system, for ordering and selection of test cases based on the test result of previously executed test cases. To analyze the economic efficiency of such a system, a customized return on investment (ROI) metric tailored for system integration testing is introduced. Using data collected from the development process of a large-scale safety-critical embedded system, we perform Monte Carlo simulations to evaluate the expected ROI of three variants of the proposed new process. The results show that our proposed decision support system is beneficial in terms of ROI at system integration testing and thus qualifies as an important element in improving the integration testing process.

Series
Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS), ISSN 0302-9743 ; 10027
Keywords
Decision support system, Integration testing, Optimization, Prioritization, Process improvement, Return on investment, Software testing, Test case selection
National Category
Computer and Information Sciences
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:ri:diva-21422 (URN)10.1007/978-3-319-49094-6_17 (DOI)2-s2.0-84998880972 (Scopus ID)978-3-319-49093-9 (ISBN)978-3-319-49094-6 (ISBN)
Conference
17th International Conference on Product-Focused Software Process Improvement (PROFES 2016), November 22 – 24, 2016, Trondheim, Norway
Projects
IMPRINT
Available from: 2016-10-31 Created: 2016-10-31 Last updated: 2023-10-04Bibliographically approved
Tahvili, S., Saadatmand, M., Larsson, S., Afzal, W., Bohlin, M. & Sundmark, D. (2016). Dynamic Integration Test Selection Based on Test Case Dependencies (15ed.). In: 2016 IEEE Ninth International Conference on Software Testing, Verification and Validation Workshops (ICSTW): . Paper presented at 9th IEEE International Conference on Software Testing, Verification and Validation Workshops (ICSTW 2016), April 10-15, 2016, Chicago, US (pp. 277-286).
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Dynamic Integration Test Selection Based on Test Case Dependencies
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2016 (English)In: 2016 IEEE Ninth International Conference on Software Testing, Verification and Validation Workshops (ICSTW), 2016, 15, p. 277-286Conference paper, Published paper (Refereed)
Abstract [en]

Prioritization, selection and minimization of test cases are well-known problems in software testing. Test case prioritization deals with the problem of ordering an existing set of test cases, typically with respect to the estimated likelihood of detecting faults. Test case selection addresses the problem of selecting a subset of an existing set of test cases, typically by discarding test cases that do not add any value in improving the quality of the software under test. Most existing approaches for test case prioritization and selection suffer from one or several drawbacks. For example, they to a large extent utilize static analysis of code for that purpose, making them unfit for higher levels of testing such as integration testing. Moreover, they do not exploit the possibility of dynamically changing the prioritization or selection of test cases based on the execution results of prior test cases. Such dynamic analysis allows for discarding test cases that do not need to be executed and are thus redundant. This paper proposes a generic method for prioritization and selection of test cases in integration testing that addresses the above issues. We also present the results of an industrial case study where initial evidence suggests the potential usefulness of our approach in testing a safety-critical train control management subsystem.

National Category
Computer and Information Sciences
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:ri:diva-24552 (URN)10.1109/ICSTW.2016.14 (DOI)2-s2.0-84992215253 (Scopus ID)978-1-5090-3674-5 (ISBN)
Conference
9th IEEE International Conference on Software Testing, Verification and Validation Workshops (ICSTW 2016), April 10-15, 2016, Chicago, US
Projects
IMPRINT
Available from: 2016-10-31 Created: 2016-10-31 Last updated: 2023-10-04Bibliographically approved
Organisations
Identifiers
ORCID iD: ORCID iD iconorcid.org/0000-0002-0921-0878

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