Document Type

Theses, Ph.D

Disciplines

Electrical and electronic engineering

Abstract

Embedded control systems are integral to most modern electrified products and an essential backbone of ongoing digitalisation [1]. In this context, these systems increasingly perform safety-critical functions where failures can lead to severe personal injury, environmental damage, or significant economic loss [2]. Consequently, they fall more often within the scope of regulation such as IEC 61508 and its derivatives [3]. At the same time, driven by hardware evolution and market demands, embedded control systems continue to grow in both integration density and functional complexity [4]. These demands necessitate structured development methods that balance compliance with cost-efficiency and development agility. A particularly relevant method is model-based engineering, in which system aspects are captured to support analysis, traceability, and the automated derivation of implementation artefacts [5]. While existing solutions offer a rich conceptual foundation, their associated languages, toolchains, and processes often prove demanding, particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises [6]. In many cases, the effort required to introduce, maintain, and operate such modelling environments outweighs the benefits, even where more formalised development practices would be advantageous [7]. This thesis closes this gap by introducing a novel, minimalist yet holistic modelling approach that provides a practicable alternative.

The work concentrates on overcoming typical challenges in safety-related embedded control software development. At its core lies a domain model that consolidates and interrelates the information required for system development and the creation of the safety case, for the first time within a single coherent structure. To keep this representation accessible, a dedicated modelling language is defined. A novel executable software architecture complements the domain model by providing the building blocks with which its abstractions can be translated into a platform-agnostic implementation. This not only includes structural aspects, data flows, and control behaviour, but also hardware mapping and safety-related concerns such as separation and diagnosis. To support reasoning and procedural needs, the domain model is designed to be analysable and to enable the automated generation of documentation.

To prove the feasibility of this concept, this thesis presents a reference toolchain that realises and verifies the domain model and its ecosystem. While an analyser ensures model consistency, its distinctive contribution lies in the evaluation of domain-specific rules, including safety-related constraints such as freedom from interference and conflicting integrity levels. A C/C++-based code generator translates modelled structure, behaviour, and hardware mapping into concrete execution and memory layouts. It thereby supports a wide range of representative base systems, from bare metal to safety operating systems, and scales from single core to multicore across various controller platforms. Furthermore, a documentation generator provides novel forms of reports and diagrams that improve system understanding and can be used directly within development and safety argumentation.

To evaluate the applicability of the approach, it was validated across academic and industrial settings. In the academic context, it was used as a basis for runtime tracing, automated unit testing, and ISO 26262 alignment. As part of an industrial project, it formed a central element of the software development and safety lifecycle, where it contributed to successful certification according to ISO 25119. The approach thereby demonstrates that its abstractions and generated artefacts align with technical and procedural expectations while leaving room for project-specific tailoring and iterative refinement. Together, these results show that this novel modelling approach provides a coherent and practically usable foundation for the safe-by design development of embedded control software. The thesis delivers both a conceptual framework and a concrete realisation that bridge the gap between the theoretical strengths of model-based systems engineering and the practical constraints of resource-limited development environments.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.21427/ZNY8-QY66

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.

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