Component-based software as a framework for concurrent design of programs and platforms -- an industrial kitchen appliance embedded system

摘要

Designs of hardware, mechanics and software for a new mechatronic system are to be performed concurrently in order to have a new product in the market in the shortest possible time. Traditionally, major hardware blocks need to be designed and built first. They represent a platform for software writing and testing. A software design concept that enables a parallel design of hardware, mechanics and software is presented. The concept implies creation of a framework for a component-based software design first. Then, a component-based design is performed. At software design time, software components yield embedded system functionality, and they also model hardware and mechanics functionality. As hardware and mechanical parts are built, they are integrated with functionality components, already designed, written and verified. The critical software design task is splitting the embedded software functionality and hardware model into self contained, self sufficient components, easy to manage simple interfaces. The concept is demonstrated by a case of designing software for a potato fryer. Software components are designed to be transportable to other industrial kitchen appliances (bain-marie, tilting pan, range) via parameter adjustments only. In the case study of a potato fryer, 90/100 of microcontroller code was implemented and verified as software components in a C+ + Builder environment running on a personal computer at the same time as hardware and fryer mechanical parts were built. l0/100 of code was written and final parameter adjustments were performed on a simple microcontroller development system.