Towards a tool for derivation of implementation constraints

An increasing concern in the development of embedded systems is that fundamental design problems often remain undetected until the final tests, after implementation and integration of all components, or maybe even later - at runtime. This is particularly important when it comes to meeting nonfunctional constraints such as performance or resource utilization requirements. Correcting problems with their sources in design, after implementation, may be very costly as it often requires both redesign and re-implementation. Therefore, much effort has been put into the development of methods and tools that help system designers and developers to detect problems as early as possible during system development. This paper contributes with an addition to that field by presenting and evaluating the practical usefulness of a method that makes it possible to detect problems in system design and dimensioning, even before all components of the system have been fully implemented. Evaluation of the proposed method has been done through 17 different case studies with different characteristics, focusing particularly on realtime latency requirements for tasks on homogeneous single bus platforms. The evaluation indicates a practical method that can be turned into a powerful tool. The presented principles can be extended to wider classes of constraints and systems.