An embedded system is a computer system—a combination of a computer processor, computer memory, and input/output peripheral devices—that has a dedicated function within a larger mechanical or electronic system. It is embedded as part of a complete device often including electrical or electronic hardware and mechanical parts. Because an embedded system typically controls physical operations of the machine that it is embedded within, it often has real-time computing constraints. Embedded systems control many devices in common use. In 2009, it was estimated that ninety-eight percent of all microprocessors manufactured were used in embedded systems.
A safety-critical system or life-critical system is a system whose failure or malfunction may result in one of the following outcomes:
OSEK is a standards body that has produced specifications for an embedded operating system, a communications stack, and a network management protocol for automotive embedded systems. It has produced related specifications, namely AUTOSAR. OSEK was designed to provide a reliable standard software architecture for the various electronic control units (ECUs) throughout a car.
ZF Friedrichshafen AG, also known as ZF Group, originally Zahnradfabrik Friedrichshafen, and commonly abbreviated to ZF, is a global technology company that supplies systems for passenger cars, commercial vehicles and industrial technology. It is headquartered in Friedrichshafen, in the south-west German state of Baden-Württemberg. Specializing in engineering, it is primarily known for its design, research and development, and manufacturing activities in the automotive industry and is one of the largest automotive suppliers in the world. Its products include driveline and chassis technology for cars and commercial vehicles, along with specialist plant equipment such as construction equipment. It is also involved in the rail, marine, defense and aviation industries, as well as general industrial applications. ZF has 168 production locations in 32 countries with approximately 165,000 (2022) employees.
Reliability engineering is a sub-discipline of systems engineering that emphasizes the ability of equipment to function without failure. Reliability describes the ability of a system or component to function under stated conditions for a specified period of time. Reliability is closely related to availability, which is typically described as the ability of a component or system to function at a specified moment or interval of time.
AUTomotive Open System ARchitecture (AUTOSAR) is a development partnership of automotive interested parties founded in 2003. It pursues the objective to create and establish an open and standardized software architecture for automotive electronic control units (ECUs). Goals include the scalability to different vehicle and platform variants, transferability of software, the consideration of availability and safety requirements, a collaboration between various partners, sustainable use of natural resources, and maintainability during the product lifecycle.
In functional safety, safety integrity level (SIL) is defined as the relative level of risk-reduction provided by a safety instrumented function (SIF), i.e. the measurement of the performance required of the SIF.
Software assurance (SwA) is a critical process in software development that ensures the reliability, safety, and security of software products. It involves a variety of activities, including requirements analysis, design reviews, code inspections, testing, and formal verification. One crucial component of software assurance is secure coding practices, which follow industry-accepted standards and best practices, such as those outlined by the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) in their CERT Secure Coding Standards (SCS).
Information security standards or cyber security standards are techniques generally outlined in published materials that attempt to protect the cyber environment of a user or organization. This environment includes users themselves, networks, devices, all software, processes, information in storage or transit, applications, services, and systems that can be connected directly or indirectly to networks.
IEC 61508 is an international standard published by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) consisting of methods on how to apply, design, deploy and maintain automatic protection systems called safety-related systems. It is titled Functional Safety of Electrical/Electronic/Programmable Electronic Safety-related Systems.
MISRA C is a set of software development guidelines for the C programming language developed by The MISRA Consortium. Its aims are to facilitate code safety, security, portability and reliability in the context of embedded systems, specifically those systems programmed in ISO C / C90 / C99.
The Automotive Industry Action Group (AIAG) is a not-for-profit association founded in 1982 and based in Southfield, Michigan. It was originally created to develop recommendations and a framework for the improvement of quality in the North American automotive industry. The association's areas of interest have expanded to include product quality standards, bar code and RFID standards, materials management, EDI, returnable containers and packaging systems, and regulatory and customs issues.
Functional safety is the part of the overall safety of a system or piece of equipment that depends on automatic protection operating correctly in response to its inputs or failure in a predictable manner (fail-safe). The automatic protection system should be designed to properly handle likely human errors, systematic errors, hardware failures and operational/environmental stress.
LDRA is a provider of software analysis, and test and requirements traceability tools for the Public and Private sectors, and is a pioneer in static and dynamic software analysis.
ISO 26262, titled "Road vehicles – Functional safety", is an international standard for functional safety of electrical and/or electronic systems that are installed in serial production road vehicles, defined by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) in 2011, and revised in 2018.
TargetLink is a software for automatic code generation, based on a subset of Simulink/Stateflow models, produced by dSPACE GmbH. TargetLink requires an existing MATLAB/Simulink model to work on. TargetLink generates both ANSI-C and production code optimized for specific processors. It also supports the generation of AUTOSAR-compliant code for software components for the automotive sector. The management of all relevant information for code generation takes place in a central data container, called the Data Dictionary.
The ETAS Group is a German company which designs tools for the development of embedded systems for the automotive industry and other sectors of the embedded industry. ETAS is 100-percent subsidiary of Robert Bosch GmbH.
The Open Group Future Airborne Capability Environment was formed in 2010 to define an open avionics environment for all military airborne platform types. Today, it is a real-time software-focused professional group made up of industry suppliers, customers, academia, and users. The FACE approach is a government-industry software standard and business strategy for acquisition of affordable software systems that promotes innovation and rapid integration of portable capabilities across programs. The FACE Consortium provides a vendor-neutral forum for industry and government to work together to develop and consolidate the open standards, best practices, guidance documents, and business strategy necessary to result in:
Parasoft C/C++test is an integrated set of tools for testing C and C++ source code that software developers use to analyze, test, find defects, and measure the quality and security of their applications. It supports software development practices that are part of development testing, including static code analysis, dynamic code analysis, unit test case generation and execution, code coverage analysis, regression testing, runtime error detection, requirements traceability, and code review. It's a commercial tool that supports operation on Linux, Windows, and Solaris platforms as well as support for on-target embedded testing and cross compilers.
Robustness validation is a skills strategy with which the Robustness of a product to the loading conditions of a real application is proven and targeted statements about risks and reliability can be made. This strategy is particularly for use in the automotive industry however could be applied to any industry where high levels of reliability are required
