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Embedded systems and software developers are always looking for new opportunities to enhance their applications. Companies must rapidly develop new products and aggressively pursue better processes to remain vital in the marketplace. Adopting a software development process that addresses this challenge is critical to meeting customer needs.
The shift from 8 or 16 bit to 32 or 64 bit Digital Signal Processor (DSP) chip technologies creates an opportunity for next-generation device development. Just a few years ago, controller boards required both DSPs and traditional CPUs to perform the application processing and the signal processing.
Today, inexpensive DSPs perform their traditional signal processing functions, but their added processing power and low cost make them ideal candidates for performing both functions. Companies that are able to leverage the "free" power from new 32 and 64 bit DSP chips to host new applications stand to gain a competitive advantage.
To do this, organizations must move beyond firmware to software, meet aggressive time-to-market goals, and develop high quality applications. Organizations that embrace an embedded systems and software process that allows them to design, validate, simulate, test and collaborate on applications in one powerful design environment have a clear advantage over their competition.
Model Driven Development (MDD) solves these issues; modeling enables software reuse, allows distributed teams to easily collaborate and build system-wide models that encompass the entire design in one cohesive environment. Using MDD, teams can model the whole system, re-using their existing software, leveraging distributed teams to their fullest advantage and moving DSP chip design from firmware to software — thereby expanding the DSP chip's role in embedded applications.
This paper discusses how a drilling products manufacturer for the oil and gas industry leveraged MDD to build their latest set of downhole sensors. By embracing a new workflow, MDD reduced the time required to build DSP based applications, improved application quality and helped the company establish a competitive edge in the marketplace.
The Downhole Application Challenge
An oilfield drilling products manufacturer based in Houston, Texas, began development on a new suite of downhole sensors. Downhole sensors detect the presence of oil and natural gas in or near the borehole while the well is being drilled. The sensors attach to the drill rig to monitor the rock formation, the mud, and the borehole itself. DSPs control all of the downhole sensors and perform all of the real-time downhole processing.
Historically, every time the company upgraded sensor hardware, improved an algorithm, or used a different DSP, the firmware crew assigned to the sensor had to re-develop the entire application. Each team implemented its application independently of the other sensor teams.
The firmware teams noticed that they could abstract common functions, such as collecting and logging data, communicating with other modules and the surface, and reading analog and discrete sensors. By abstracting these functions, all of the sensor teams could use the common code.
The problem that the sensor teams faced was how to represent the firmware design. They chose a Unified Modeling Language (UML)-based approach because their research indicated that UML would provide better visibility into their designs. But they needed more than just a way to represent their firmware " they needed a new firmware development process.
As the company developed its vision, they crafted a solution set "wish list" that included the ability to:
Create new software designs in a standard modeling language
Map requirements to functionality for the easy organization of reusable elements
Reuse common functions easily across product development
Generate code directly from the design model
Simulate and test designs early in the process
Figure 1:Model Driven Development consists of key enabling technologies that allowed firmware developers to build applications faster with fewer errors.
The software development process that they found best met their vision and was ideal for embedded applications was the Telelogic Rhapsody MDD solution. Like many processes, MDD uses UML to represent the firmware design, but MDD includes all of the firmware development lifecycle steps.
Following MDD, architects capture, elaboration, and trace requirements directly in the model. Developers design, implement, and unit test the code directly in the model and Testers build test cases directly from the model.
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