Innovative engineering of software-intensive systems
In numerous industries, companies face the challenge of developing complex technical and socio-technical systems. This requires a careful approach to ensure rapid market acceptance and long-term profitability. The trend toward autonomous, interactive, and dynamically networked products – driven by software innovations – underscores the need for innovative, precise methods in the field of software and systems engineering.
Modern software-intensive systems and services are characterized by a steadily growing number of software-defined functions, made possible by the availability of computing power, bandwidth, data, and services. Developers face the challenge of balancing conflicting design constraints and goals arising from both user-centered requirements and non-negotiable regulations and standards. At the same time, the demand for non-functional properties such as security, robustness, availability, protection, privacy, and maintainability is increasing. The boundaries between individual systems and application domains are becoming increasingly blurred, particularly in systems-of-systems, while software is being integrated ever more deeply into complex cyber-physical systems. Added to this is a high degree of automation and autonomy, with AI-intensive software playing an increasingly significant role.
Interdisciplinary approach to future-proof software
The fortiss research focus area Software & Systems Engineering centers on an interdisciplinary approach: Expertise from various fields of competences is pooled to develop innovative methods for engineering software-intensive systems. The goal is to manage the increasing complexity of these systems and to enable continuous, seamless development and quality assurance across organizational, disciplinary, and cross-system boundaries.
Requirements Engineering
Model-based Systems Engineering
Automated Software Testing
Use Cases
Systematic requirements elicitation with artifact model blueprints
fortiss develops methodological approaches for the structured capture and documentation of requirements. Artifact model blueprints help identify dependencies and enable the efficient development of complex systems.
Automated requirements extraction and compliance verification
fortiss researches semi-automated methods for requirements extraction, allowing companies to efficiently analyze and demonstrate compliance requirements—particularly in highly regulated industries such as finance and insurance.
Analysis and management of model quality and consistency
Automated analysis and optimization of model structures enhance quality and consistency in software and systems development. Errors are detected early, and development processes become more efficient.
Optimization of software and hardware architectures for cyber-physical systems
AI-supported algorithms optimize architectural decisions in modern systems. This enables the efficient implementation of design constraints and objectives, improves quality, and accelerates development processes.
Machine learning-based test case generation for complex systems
Machine learning and search-based methods automate test case generation, reduce testing effort, and enable early fault detection—especially in safety-critical domains such as the automotive industry.
Reference projects
Integrated development environment for the aerospace industry
Efficient verification of safety mechanisms through test automation
Optimizing the vehicle architectures of tomorrow
Model-based development of safe and cyber-resilient autonomous driving systems
Efficient and automated security compliance for agile software development
Search-based testing of automated driving systems
Tool-supported Regulatory Compliance in Requirements Engineering
Software development toolkit for SMEs for structured, efficient and practical projects
Managing complex software ecosystems in industrial automation
A framework for continuous and accountable software certification
Continuous security assurance for secure cyber-physical systems
Reliable usage control for secure policy enforcement in cloud, edge and IoT environments
At a glance
Services & insights
Research with impact
Your innovation starts with fortiss
