Fraunhofer Institute for Experimental Software Engineering IESEMastering Software Diversity in Agricultural Technology
Fraunhofer IESE, in collaboration with John Deere, has looked at and used the development of systematic control of software diversity.
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Reference Project: John Deere
In the context of the collaboration with John Deere, Fraunhofer IESE has developed and employed systematic control of software diversity. The research topic was software for displays that are used in John Deere tractors. The displays allow controlling various functions of the tractor and of the attached implements and have a wide variety of variants due to the numerous configuration possibilities.
The tool-supported analysis is an extension of the SAVE tool of Fraunhofer IESE used for the static evaluation of systems. The tool is able to analyze several system variants at the same time and to identify common as well as specific software parts efficiently. In this project, four system variants with more than one million lines of code each were thus analyzed within just a few minutes.
In order to ensure the sustainability of the new system structure, the last step is to include it in the configuration management and to pin it down in terms of the organization. Here the focus is on the coordination mechanisms (e.g., split projects, branches) that are entered into the tool chain.
Challenge
- Agricultural technology must deal with many product variants, this leads to the development of numerous variants for the respective hardware and software parts of these systems
- Reuse on the level of software components is of central importance in this context: Components that are used in different ways by all variants must be identified and managed
- Identification and central management of reusable components not easy - Complexity of the systems as well as the development processes, which lead to parallel development projects not being adequately coordinated
- Productivity losses, significant maintenance costs, and longer times to market are hard to avoid in such a situation
Contributions of Fraunhofer IESE
- Tool-supported analysis of the differences in system variants
- Structural system modification to improve the handling of diversity
- Operationalization of the new structure with the help of configuration management
Goals / Results
- Implementation of a structural system change (refactoring)
- Increased development productivity through reduced implementation efforts and fewer errors
Customer statement
Dr. Thomas Engel, Manager ISG Europe, John Deere says: