More and more automotive services are designed using embedded software, including those related to electrical vehicles as well as multimedia and driving aids. Managing the development costs of embedded software is a major challenge to ensure the competitiveness of Renault. The thesis is part of an industry research project to improve the management of these software development costs.
An estimation process based on the use of software development productivity models allows the management of development costs. The creation of a productivity model is based on the measurement of an attribute of the software, its functional size, and on the effort data provided by the supplier(s).
The industrial problem to be addressed first is the cost estimation of future software development using their functional requirements modeled with a specific language or modeling tool. By measuring the functional size of its functional requirements using the COSMIC ISO 19761 ISO standard, Renault SAS is able to benchmark, select suppliers to whom it will entrust the development of its software products and negotiate specific development projects.
The main purpose of this research project is the automation of the measurement of functional size of reactive, real-time and embedded systems software using their functional requirements, and according to the ISO 19761 COSMIC method. Hence, this requires to identify the parts in the measurement process that can be automated, and then to design and prototype a tool to automate those parts to speed up the measurement process (which consumes a lot of time and resources if done manually, not to mention the 'human' error factor) so that the use of this method in the industry is feasible and effective.
These functional sizes are combined with project efforts to produce the suppliers’ productivity models which are used next for estimation purposes.
It is challenging to automate a functional size method because measurement methods define generic concepts and measurement rules. The set up of a measurement procedure for each input to the measurement process is hence needed. A measurement procedure is defined as a set of operations described explicitly in order to measure according to a specific measurement method. Therefore, in order to achieve the goal of this research project, two research objectives were selected. The first research objective is the design of measurement procedures based on the COSMIC ISO 19761 standard, and the second research objective is the development of a prototype that implements these procedures.
The first research objective was achieved in two steps:
1. The analysis of the models of the two modeling tools used at Renault (i.e. Simulink and Statemate)
2. The design of the two measurement procedures, one for the functional requirements modeled with Statemate, and another for Simulink.
The second research objective required a number of steps, including first the design of a semi-formal representation for the extraction of necessary and sufficient information to be able to measure software by following the principles of the COSMIC ISO 19761 method. This semi-formal representation can be generated manually throughout the manual application of the measurement procedures, but its manual production is time consuming.
Another step of the second research objective was the design and the development of a prototype that implements the measurement procedure proposed for the measurement of software functional requirements modeled with Simulink. This research prototype was tested to ensure that the results of the measurement made by the prototype were in accordance with the COSMIC ISO 19761 standard. The prototype was evaluated with an evaluation protocol proposed in the context of this research project for the automation tools which are based on the COSMIC standard and by using a set of functional requirements of Renault. An industrial version of this prototype-tool was also developed and is now in use at Renault; a patent request was submitted.
| Date | 23 Nov 2011 |
|---|
| Original language | French |
|---|
| Awarding Institution | - École de technologie supérieure
|
|---|
| Supervisor | Alain Abran (Supervisor) & Amar Ramdane-Cherif (Co-supervisor) |
|---|
Soubra, H. (Author),
Abran, A. (Supervisor) & Ramdane-Cherif, A. (Co-supervisor),
23 Nov 2011Student thesis: Doctoral thesis › Doctorate in Engineering: Engineering