Embedded Systems: Rules to Improve Adaptability

Embedded systems have specific properties, which are consequences of the application domain, namely the close connection to the underlying technical system, the specific challenges of the development process, the mixture of persons involved in their development, etc. Thus, adaptability (portability, extensibility, and changeability) is more difficult compared to other types of software systems. The chapter addresses the question, what we can be do to improve adaptability of embedded systems. We study different examples of embedded systems. A series of hints is given. Most of them are related to the abstract architecture, i.e. the first result of the design process. The hints are also helpful for other higher-level tasks, such as integration of embedded systems, developing families of embedded systems, finding opportunities for reuse, and alike.