Using cross-dependencies during configuration of system families

Abstract

Nowadays, the automotive industry uses software product lines to support the management and maintenance of software variants. However, the development of mechatronic systems includes not merely software, but also other system parts like operating system, hardware or even mechanical parts. We call a combination of these system parts a system family (SF). This combination raises the question how different variable system parts can be modeled and used for a combined configuration in a flexible way. We argue that a modeling process should combine all of these system parts, while the product configuration has to consider dependencies between them. Based on our previous work, we address this question and discuss dependencies between different system parts.