Automatic optimisation of system architectures using EAST-ADL

• Design of complex system architectures offers many challenges.
• Use of ADLs helps to centralise system information and enable analysis.
• Optimisation can be used to explore design spaces and support design decisions.
• We have developed an optimisation tool architecture based on EAST-ADL.
• The technique is applied to an illustrative example, demonstrating its benefits.

There are many challenges which face designers of complex system architectures, particularly safety–critical or real-time systems. The introduction of Architecture Description Languages (ADLs) has helped to meet these challenges by consolidating information about a system and providing a platform for modelling and analysis capabilities. However, managing this wealth of information can still be problematic, and evaluation of potential design decisions is still often performed manually. Automatic architectural optimisation can be used to assist this decision process, enabling designers to rapidly explore many different options and evaluate them according to specific criteria. In this paper, we present a multi-objective optimisation approach based on EAST-ADL, an ADL in the automotive domain, with the goal of combining the advantages of ADLs and architectural optimisation. The approach is designed to be extensible and leverages the capabilities of EAST-ADL to provide support for evaluation according to different factors, including dependability, timing/performance, and cost. The technique is applied to an illustrative example system featuring both hardware and software perspectives, demonstrating the potential benefits of this concept to the design of embedded system architectures.