Abstract:
In recent years, Singapore’s manufacturing sector has contributed more than a
quarter of the total Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and has established global
leadership positions in several manufacturing areas such as electronics,
Information Technology (IT) and industrial automation. The Singapore
Economic Review Committee (ERC) recommendation states that “software and
embedded systems that drive products are one of the most important
technologies for the manufacturing sector. “
With the increasing adoption of automated and intelligent products, embedded
systems have emerged as a crucial technology for Singapore. However, the
development of embedded applications is not a trivial undertaking as it can
usually involve multi-discipline parties and different application platforms. Most
embedded application developments use either vendor specific or desktop based methodologies. Vendor specific methodologies constrain the company to
rely on the specific vendor's solutions, whereas desktop-based methodologies
are not well suited to embedded application development. Therefore, this
research aims to develop a standard-based system development methodology
for embedded applications.
The research programme comprises 5 stages. The first stage reviews the
existing system development methodologies for embedded applications. The
next stage formulates the proposed conceptual methodology followed by the
development of the proof-of-concept tool to demonstrate the merits of the
proposed approach. The methodology is then tested and evaluated respectively
by using industrial experiments and feedback from a workshop. The final stage
refines the methodology based on the feedback and presents the final system
development methodology. The research has provided a sound foundation
which future research in methodology for embedded applications to develop
further.
