SPES 2020 Deliverable 1.4.B-3 Concepts for an Integrated Tool ...

Beyond hardware. The extendable architecture of AutoFOCUS 3 was not only built to allow
extending the hardware topology language. Also, on the logical architecture, extendability is
a key issue. For example, the automata which were the only way of describing behavior in the
previous AutoFOCUS versions are not always the most appropriate modeling technique. If the
function that has to be computed by a logical component is just a simple mapping of its input to
its output ports, a mapping table is a much more convenient way of describing the situation. To
develop control applications, special languages that allow an efficient description of the control
algorithms would be much more desirable than automata. Even some imperative language that
enables the definition of variable assignments, loops (perhaps only statically bounded ones)
and if-statements might be beneficial in several situations. Having the flexibility to tune the
language to make it most appropriate for the specific task achieves a less cumbersome and
more efficient development. Furthermore, smaller and more comprehensible models can be
built that due not fall short a huge encoding gap [Rat09].
5.2 Case Studies and Future Work on AutoFOCUS
AutoFOCUS 3 has already been successfully applied to develop a realistic ACC/PCS system
[FFH + 08] and a Keyless Entry system [FHP + ar] based on real-world requirements. Furthermore,
we also provided support for the generation of verified code [H¨09].
In the future, AutoFOCUS will be further extended with language components that address
the early phases of a project. In addition, several behavior description techniques, such as
mode diagrams, an imperative language etc. are planned.
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