Towards Trusted Apps platforms for open CPS - Prehofer, Christian; Horst, Oliver; Dodi, Riccardo; Geven, Arjan; Kornaros, George; Montanari, Eleonora; Paolino, Michele (3rd International Workshop on Emerging Ideas and Trends in Engineering of Cyber-Physical Systems (EITEC), 2016)
For many cyber-physical systems, there is a strong trend towards open systems, which can be extended during operation by instantly adding functionalities on demand. We discuss this trend in the context of automotive and medical systems. The goal of this paper is to elaborate the research challenges of new platforms for such open systems. A main problem is that such CPS apps shall be able to access and modify safety critical device internals. We present results of the TAPPS (Trusted Apps for open CPS) project, which develops an end-to-end solution for development and deployment of trusted apps. The main approach is to devise different execution environments for highly-trusted CPS apps. We present the architecture approach and its key components, and methods for CPS apps, including tool chain and development support.
Keywords: cyber-physical systems; open systems; safety-critical software; CPS apps; TAPPS; automotive systems; cyberphysical systems; medical systems; open CPS; open systems; safety critical device internals; tool chain; trusted apps platforms; Automotive engineering; Computer architecture; Electronic mail; Hardware; Real-time systems; Security; Vehicles; architecture; cyber-physical-systems; open-source; real-time systems; trusted apps

A Formal Model and Analysis of Feature Degradation in Fault-Tolerant Systems - Becker, Klaus; Voss, Sebastian (4th Int. Workshop on Formal Techniques for Safety-Critical Systems (FTSCS), 2016)
Fault-tolerant systems have to react on errors resulting from faults properly to avoid error propagation and finally a harmful failure of the entire system. Beside the detection of failing system elements, also the actions to handle failures are essential to cover the safety requirements. Actions reach from enabling fail-silent, fail-safe or fail-operational behavior of system elements, or also hybrids of this in a mixed-critical system design. Graceful degradation may be applied when system resources become insufficient, reducing the set of provided functional features. In this paper we address mixed critical systems, which partially comprise fail-operational functional features. We consider degradations of functional features in failure scenarios. We describe a formal model that contains i.a. the features of a system, possible feature degradations, the software components that realize these features, as well as the deployment of these components to execution units. We calculate valid deployments of software components to execution units and analyze them according to the level of graceful degradation on feature level and system level, as a consequence of failures of execution units or software components. We show an example from the automotive domain to illustrate our approach.
Keywords: Graceful-degradation; Fault-tolerance Redundancy; Fail-operational; Mixed-critical; Diversity; Deployment; Dependability; Model-based Systems Engineering; MbSE

Factory Product Lines: Tackling the Compatibility Problem - Bayha, Andreas; Lúcio, Levi; Aravantinos, Vincent; Miyamoto, Kenji; Igna, Georgeta (Proceedings of the Tenth International Workshop on Variability Modelling of Software-intensive Systems (VAMOS), 2016)
Variability poses enormous challenges to the manufacturing domain: the demand for highly customized and personalized goods requires bringing a large amount of flexibility to traditional mass production techniques. In particular, when a factory is asked to produce of a new variant of a good, production planning engineers need to manually examine that factory in question, in order to understand whether that new variant can indeed be produced. We call this the "compatibility between the variant and the factory" problem. In this paper, we present a product line-based modelling technique and a tool for assisting production planning engineers in the resolution of this problem.
Keywords: Model-based Systems Engineering; MbSE

Pareto-efficient deployment synthesis for safety-critical applications in seamless model-based development - Zverlov, Sergey; Khalil, Maged; Chaudhary, Mayank (Proceedings of the 8th European Congress on Embedded Real Time Software and Systems (ERTS 2016), 2016)
Increasingly complex functionality in automotive applications demand more and more computing power. As room for computing units in modern vehicles dwindles, centralized ar-chitectures-with larger, more powerful processing units-are the trend. With this trend, applications no longer run on dedicated hardware, but share the same computing resources with others on the centralized platform. Ascertaining efficient deployment and scheduling for co-located applications is complicated by the extra constrains which arise if some of them have a safety-critical functionality. Building on our pre-existing design space exploration solution, we integrated safety constraints, such as ASIL and HW failure rates, as well as practical aspects, such as component costs, and extended the approach to allow for multi-criteria optimization. The work was implemented into our seamless model-based research CASE tool AutoFOCUS3 and evaluated using a non-trivial industrial-inspired case study. The solution is capable of synthesizing deployments together with corresponding schedules, which satisfy different safety and resource constraints. The deployments can subsequently be integrated into the safety case argumentation of AutoFOCUS3, leveraging the tool's seamless capabilities to support safety evidence and certification. Moreover, we are not interested in merely valid solutions, but in good ones. We hence developed a multi-objective optimization algorithm, which synthesizes solutions pareto-optimized for safety, resource usage, timing and any other constraints the user defines. Our approach demonstrates the feasibility and effectiveness of using formal methods to generate correct solutions for safety-critical applications, increasing the confidence and validity of safety cases.
Keywords: Design Space Exploration; AutoFOCUS; Optimization; SMT; Safety; Resource Optimization; Deployment; Scheduling; Model-based Systems Engineering; MbSE

A Model Based Engineering Tool for ROS Component Compositioning, Configuration and Generation of Deployment Information - Wenger, Monika; Eisenmenger, Waldemar; Neugschwandtner, Georg; Schneider, Ben; Zoitl, Alois (21st IEEE International Conference on Emerging Technologies and Factory Automation (ETFA), 2016)

iEMG: Imaging Electromyography - Urbanek, Holger; van der Smagt, Patrick (Journal of Electromyography and Kinesiology, 2016)

Tactical Cooperative Planning for Autonomous Vehicles using MCTS - Lenz, David; Kessler, Tobias; Knoll, Alois (IEEE Intelligent Vehicles Symposium, 2016)
Abstract—Human drivers use nonverbal communication and anticipation of other drivers' actions to master conflicts oc- curring in everyday driving situations. Without a high pen- etration of vehicle-to-vehicle communication an autonomous vehicle has to have the possibility to understand intentions of others and share own intentions with the surrounding traffic participants. This paper proposes a cooperative combinatorial motion planning algorithm without the need for inter vehicle communication based on Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS).We motivate why MCTS is particularly suited for the autonomous driving domain. Furthermore, adoptions to the MCTS algo- rithm are presented as for example simultaneous decisions, the usage of the Intelligent Driver Model as microscopic traffic simulation, and a cooperative cost function. We further show simulation results of merging scenarios in highway-like situations to underline the cooperative nature of the approach.

A Compositional Approach to the Verification of Hybrid Systems - Lacramioara Astefanoaei,; Saddek Bensalem,; Marius Bozga, (Theory and Practice of Formal Methods - Essays Dedicated to Frank de Boer on the Occasion of His 60th Birthday, 2016)

A Differentiable Transition Between Additive and Multiplicative Neurons - Koepp, Wiebke; van der Smagt, Patrick; Urban, Sebastian (International Conference on Learning Representations (ICLR), 2016)

A human in the loop corrective maintenance methodology using cross domain engineering data of mechatronic systems - Vathoopan, Milan; Brandenbourger, Benjamin; Zoitl, Alois (Emerging Technologies and Factory Automation (ETFA), 2016 IEEE 21st International Conference on, 2016)

A Lightweight Design Space Exploration and Optimization Language - Diewald, Alexander; Voss, Sebastian; Barner, Simon (Proceedings of the 19th International Workshop on Software and Compilers for Embedded Systems (SCOPES '16), 2016)
The solution of many engineering and scientific problems requires the exploration of a huge n-dimensional design space. Typical approaches rely on an abstract problem model consisting of a system model (description of the problem's variable couplings) and an optimization specification defining the objectives as well as the constraints bounding the design space. Advances in solver technologies enabled to efficiently search the solution space, however the diversity of the approaches led to problem descriptions that are difficult to reuse, as well as to solutions that are hard to compare. Our Exploration Meta-Model (EMM) addresses this issue by providing a unified language for optimization specifications that is a well-defined basis for model-based implementations of solver-independent design-space exploration (DSE) tool-chains. The EMM is a light-weight framework that allows to a) describe optimization specifications independent of particular optimization methods and solvers, b) relate solutions and optimization specifications, and c) define domain profiles that provide high-level optimization specifications that ease the adoption of automated DSE by domain experts. The applicability of our framework to different optimization methods is demonstrated by applying it to the generic vector optimization problem and to single-objective linear programs. The EMM's support to relate optimization results to input specifications is exercised for the Opt4J framework. Finally, a profile for real-time embedded systems demonstrates how the EMM can be tailored to specific domains.
Keywords: AutoFOCUS3; design-space exploration; DSE; model-based systems engineering; MbSE

A Parameter Estimator for a Model Based Adaptive Control Scheme for Longitudinal Control of Automated Vehicles - Buechel, Martin; Knoll, Alois (9th IFAC Symposium on Intelligent Autonomous Vehicles (IAV), 2016)

Behavior modeling of automation components using cross-domain interdependencies - Brandenbourger, Benjamin; Vathoopan, Milan; Zoitl, Alois (Emerging Technologies and Factory Automation (ETFA), 2016 IEEE 21st International Conference on, 2016)

Certification for \(μ\)-Calculus with Winning Strategies - Martin Hofmann,; Christian Neukirchen,; Rueß, Harald (Model Checking Software - 23rd International Symposium, SPIN 2016, Co-located with ETAPS 2016, Eindhoven, The Netherlands, April 7-8, 2016, Proceedings, 2016)

Compositional Parameter Synthesis - Lacramioara Astefanoaei,; Bozga, Marius; Bensalem, Saddek; Cheng, Chih-Hong; Rueß, Harald (FM 2016: Formal Methods - 21st International Symposium, Limassol, Cyprus, November 9-11, 2016, Proceedings, 2016)

Deep Variational Bayes Filters: Unsupervised Learning of State Space Models from Raw Data - Karl, Maximilian; Sölch, Maximilian; Bayer, Justin; van der Smagt, Patrick (arxiv, 2016)

Efficient CTL Verification via Horn Constraints Solving - Beyene, Tewodros; Popeea, Corneliu; Rybalchenko, Andrey (HCVS@ETAPS, 2016)

Engineering of Automation Systems using a Metamodel implemented in AutomationML - Brandenbourger, Benjamin; Vathoopan, Milan; Zoitl, Alois (Industrial Informatics (INDIN), 2016 IEEE 14th International Conference on, 2016)

Entwicklung und Implementierung eines Softwareprototyps zur Informationsunterstützung und Qualitätsbewertung - Reidt, Andreas; Krcmar, Helmut (Cloud-Services aus der Geschäftsperspektive, 2016)

Evaluation of joint type modelling in the human hand - Gustus, Agneta; van der Smagt, Patrick (Journal of Biomechanics, 2016)

FAT-SCHRIFTENREIHE 287 - Future Programming Paradigms in the Automotive Industry - Molotnikov, Zaur; Schorp, Konstantin; Aravantinos, Vincent; Schätz, Bernhard (Forschungsvereinigung Automobiltechnik e.V., 2016)

Handling errors in dynamic production environments - Keddis, Nadine; Kainz, Gerd; Brandenbourger, Benjamin; Vathoopan, Milan; Zoitl, Alois (Industrial Informatics (INDIN), 2016 IEEE 14th International Conference on, 2016)

Hierarchically Structured Control Application for Pick and Place Station - Wenger, Monika; Vathoopan, Milan; Zoitl, Alois; Prähofer, Herbert (Distributed Control Applications, 2016)

Improving maintenance processes with distributed monitoring systems - Fleischmann, Hans; Kohl, Johannes; Franke, Jörg; Reidt, Andreas; Duchon, Markus; Krcmar, Helmut (2016 IEEE 14th International Conference on Industrial Informatics (INDIN), 2016)

Integrated Formal Methods for Constructing Assurance Cases - Cârlan, Carmen; Beyene, Tewodros; Rueß, Harald (Proceedings of the 2016 IEEE International Symposium on Software Reliability Engineering Workshops (ISSREW), 2016)
The use of formal methods in verification activities is well established in various dedicated safety standards. Deficits in the verification process may have a negative impact on the confidence of verification results. Safety standards promote the use of integrated formal methods when a single method cannot achieve the verification objective without specifying how. In this paper, we take on the problem of using outputs from integrated formal methods as evidence in assurance cases, which are used in certification of safety-critical systems. We first present two workflows that employ integrated formal methods - code review workflow and code coverage workflow - corresponding to two of the most important activities of the verification phase. Then, we show how each workflow and the outputs from its integrated formal methods can be used in creating an assurance argument. These assurance arguments offer evidence for undeveloped goals identified in previous works from the field.
Keywords: Model-based Systems Engineering; MbSE

Motion Planning for Nonholonomic Vehicles with Space Exploration Guided Heuristic Search - Chen, Chao (Technische Universität München, 2016)

Motivation, Bausteine und Vorgehensweise - Wollersheim, Jan; Hoberg, Patrick; Reidt, Andreas; Krcmar, Helmut (Cloud-Services aus der Geschäftsperspektive, 2016)

On Using Results of Code-level Bounded Model Checking in Assurance - Cârlan, Carmen; Ratiu, Daniel; Schätz, Bernhard (Proceedings of the International Conference on Computer Safety, Reliability, and Security (SAFECOMP), 2016)
Software bounded model checkers (BMC) are today powerful tools to perform verification at unit level, but are not used at their potential in the safety critical context. One reason for this is that model checkers often provide only incomplete results when used on real code due to restrictions placed on the environment of the system in order to facilitate the verification. In order to use these results as evidence in an assurance case, one needs to characterize the incompleteness and mitigate the assurance deficits. In this paper we present an assurance case pattern which addresses the disciplined use of successful but possibly incomplete verification results obtained through C-level bounded model checking as evidence in certification. We propose a strategy to express the confidence in incomplete verification results by complementing them with classical testing, and to mitigate the assurance deficits with additional tests. We present our preliminary experience with using the CBMC model checker and the mbeddr environment to verify three safety-critical software components.
Keywords: Model-based Systems Engineering; MbSE

Optimization of Deployment Topologies for Distributed Enterprise Applications - Willnecker, Felix; Krcmar, Helmut (2016 12th International ACM SIGSOFT Conference on Quality of Software Architectures (QoSA, 2016)

PET: Continuous Performance Evaluation Tool - Kroß, Johannes; Willnecker, Felix; Zwickl, Thomas (Proceedings of the 2nd International Workshop on Quality-Aware DevOps, 2016)
Keywords: Performance evaluation; performance analysis

Referenzarchitektur für Cyber-physische Systeme zur Unterstützung der Instandhaltung - Reidt, Andreas; Krcmar, Helmut (Multikonferenz Wirtschaftsinformatik (MKWI) 2016, 2016)

Remote Monitoring Infrastructure for IEC 61499 Based Control Software - Wenger, Monika; Blech, Jan Olaf; Peake, Ian; Zoitl, Alois (The 8th International Congress on Ultra Modern Telecommunications and Control Systems (ICUMT), 2016)

Secure run-time binary loading in a trusted real-time environment - Ruhland, Andreas (Technical University of Munich, 2016)

SiaaS: Simulation as a Service - Willnecker, Felix; Vögele, Christian; Krcmar, Helmut (Proceedings of the Symposium on Software Performance (SSP 2016, 2016)

Stable Reinforcement Learning with Autoencoders for Tactile and Visual Data - van Hoof, Herke; Chen, Nutan; Karl, Maximilian; van der Smagt, Patrick; Peters, Jan (Proc. IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2016)

Structural Synthesis for GXW Specifications - Cheng, Chih-Hong; Hamza, Yassine; Rueß, Harald (Computer Aided Verification - 28th International Conference, CAV 2016, Toronto, ON, Canada, July 17-23, 2016, Proceedings, Part I, 2016)

Variational Inference for On-line Anomaly Detection in High-Dimensional Time Series - Sölch, Maximilian; Bayer, Justin; Ludersdorfer, Marvin; van der Smagt, Patrick (International Conference on Learning Representations (ICLR), 2016)

Automatic Reengineering of IEC 61131-Based Control Applications into IEC 61499 - Wenger, Monika; Zoitl, Alois; Schitter, Georg (Distributed Control Applications, 2015)

Cloud Based Monitoring of Timed Events for Industrial Automation - Short Paper - Wenger, Monika; Zoitl, Alois; Blech, Jan Olaf; Peake, Ian; Fernando, Lasith (International Workshop on Automated Testing of Cyber-Physical Systems in the Cloud (cpsATcloud), 2015)
This paper presents ideas towards automatic monitoring of industrial automation devices by using a cloud based monitoring infrastructure. We are in particular aiming at fine grained timed properties that can be described using formal specification techniques such as behavioral types. We describe possible applications in the areas of remote maintenance and servicing as well as commissioning and testing.

Hierarchically Structured Control Application for Pick and Place Station - Wenger, Monika; Vathoopan, Milan; Prähofer, Herbert; Zoitl, Alois (Distributed Control Applications, 2015)

Object Detection Using Boundary Representations of Primitive Shapes - Somani, Nikhil; Perzylo, Alexander; Cai, Caixia; Rickert, Markus; Knoll, Alois (Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Biomimetics (ROBIO), 2015)
In this paper, an approach for matching of primitive shapes detected from point clouds, to boundary representations of primitive shapes contained in CAD models of objects/workpieces is presented. The primary target application is object detection and pose estimation from noisy RGBD sensor data. This approach can also be used to determine incomplete object poses, including those of symmetrical objects. Detection and reasoning about these under-specified object poses is useful in several practical applications such as robotic manipulation, which are also presented in this paper.
Keywords: robotics; smerobotics

Prioritized Motion-Force Control of Multi-Constraints for Industrial Manipulators - Cai, Caixia; Somani, Nikhil; Rickert, Markus; Knoll, Alois (Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Biomimetics (ROBIO), 2015)
To synthesize whole-body behaviors interactively, multiple tasks and constraints need to be simultaneously controlled, including those that guarantee that the constraints imposed by the robot's structure and the external environment are satisfied. In this paper, we present a prioritized, multiple-task control framework that is able to control forces in systems ranging from humanoids to industrial robots. Priorities between tasks are accomplished through null-space projection. Several relevant constraints (i.e., motion constraints, joint limits, force control) are tested to evaluate the control framework. Further, we evaluate the proposed approach in two typical industrial robotics applications: grasping of cylindrical objects and welding.
Keywords: robotics

A visual tracking model implemented on the iCub robot as a use case for a novel neurorobotic toolkit integrating brain and physics simulation - Vannucci, Lorenzo; Ambrosano, Alessandro; Cauli, Nino; Albanese, Ugo; Falotico, Egidio; Ulbrich, Stefan; Pfotzer, Lars; Hinkel, Georg; Denninger, Oliver; Peppicelli, Daniel; Guyot, Luc; von Arnim, Axel (Proceedings of the IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots (Humanoids), 2015)
Developing neuro-inspired computing paradigms that mimic nervous system function is an emerging field of research that fosters our model understanding of the biological system and targets technical applications in artificial systems. The computational power of simulated brain circuits makes them a very promising tool for the development for brain-controlled robots. Early phases of robotic controllers development make extensive use of simulators as they are easy, fast and cheap tools. In order to develop robotics controllers that encompass brain models, a tool that include both neural simulation and physics simulation is missing. Such a tool would require the capability of orchestrating and synchronizing simulations as well as managing the exchange of data both between them. The Neurorobotics Platform (NRP) aims at filling this gap through an integrated software toolkit enabling an experimenter to design and execute a virtual experiment with a simulated robot using customized brain models. As a use case for the NRP, the iCub robot has been integrated into the platform and connected to a spiking neural network. In particular, experiments of visual tracking have been conducted in order to demonstrate the potentiality of such a platform.
Keywords: robotics; human brain project; HBP; neurorobotics; neuromorphics; brain simulation; spiking neural networks; NRP; robot simulation

Modeling Big Data Systems by Extending the Palladio Component Model - Kroß, Johannes; Brunnert, Andreas; Krcmar, Helmut (Softwaretechnik-Trends, 2015)
The growing availability of big data has induced new storing and processing techniques implemented in big data systems such as Apache Hadoop or Apache Spark. With increased implementations of these systems in organizations, simultaneously, the requirements regarding performance qualities such as response time, throughput, and resource utilization increase to create added value. Guaranteeing these performance requirements as well as eciently planning needed capacities in advance is an enormous challenge. Performance models such as the Palladio component model (PCM) allow for addressing such problems. Therefore, we propose a meta-model extension for PCM to be able to model typical characteristics of big data systems. The extension consists of two parts. First, the meta-model is extended to support parallel computing by forking an operation multiple times on a computer cluster as intended by the single instruction, multiple data (SIMD) architecture. Second, modeling of computer clusters is integrated into the meta-model so operations can be properly scheduled on contained computing nodes.
Keywords: Palladio Component Model; Performance Model; Big Data

Multimodal Human Activity Recognition for Industrial Manufacturing Processes in Robotic Workcells - Roitberg, Alina; Somani, Nikhil; Perzylo, Alexander; Rickert, Markus; Knoll, Alois (Proceedings of the ACM International Conference on Multimodal Interaction (ICMI), 2015)
We present an approach for monitoring and interpreting human activities based on a novel multimodal vision-based interface, aiming at improving the efficiency of human-robot interaction (HRI) in industrial environments. Multi-modality is an important concept in this design, where we combine inputs from several state-of-the-art sensors to provide a variety of information, e.g. skeleton and fingertip poses. Based on typical industrial workflows, we derived multiple levels of human activity labels, including large-scale activities (e.g. assembly) and simpler sub-activities (e.g. hand gestures), creating a duration- and complexity-based hierarchy. We train supervised generative classifiers for each activity level and combine the output of this stage with a trained Hierarchical Hidden Markov Model (HHMM), which models not only the temporal aspects between the activities on the same level, but also the hierarchical relationships between the levels.
Keywords: robotics; smerobotics

Ubiquitous Semantics: Representing and Exploiting Knowledge, Geometry, and Language for Cognitive Robot Systems - Perzylo, Alexander; Somani, Nikhil; Profanter, Stefan; Gaschler, Andre; Griffiths, Sascha; Rickert, Markus; Knoll, Alois (Proceedings of the Workshop Towards Intelligent Social Robots - Current Advances in Cognitive Robotics, IEEE/RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots (HUMANOIDS), 2015)
In this paper, we present an integrated approach to knowledge representation for cognitive robots. We combine knowledge about robot tasks, interaction objects including their geometric shapes, the environment, and natural language in a common ontological description. This description is based on the Web Ontology Language (OWL) and allows to automatically link and interpret these different kinds of information. Semantic descriptions are shared between object detection and pose estimation, task-level manipulation skills, and human-friendly interfaces. Through lifting the level of communication between the human operator and the robot system to an abstract level, we achieve more human-suitable interaction and thus a higher level of acceptance by the user. Furthermore, it increases the efficiency of communication. The benefits of our approach are highlighted by examples from the domains of industrial assembly and service robotics.
Keywords: robotics; smerobotics

Evaluation of a 9D-Position Measurement Method of a C-Arm Based on X-Ray Projections - Thürauf, Sabine; Hornung, Oliver; Körner, Mario; Vogt, Florian; Nasseri, M. Ali; Knoll, Alois (Proceedings of the Workshop on Interventional Microscopy, International Conference on Medical Image Computing and Computer Assisted Intervention (MICCAI), 2015)
For features like X-ray CTs (computed tomography) a high absolute pose accuracy of the C-arm system is needed. Therefore, an extensive calibration has to be performed to make the C-arm system sufficiently accurate. One new approach to calibrate the system is to perform an absolute robot calibration with end effector pose measurements as input. To measure the poses, X-ray images of a calibration phantom can be used. This work determines a lower bound for an X-raybased 9D-position measurement technique for a C-arm system (including the 3D-position of the tube, the 3D-position of the detector and the 3Dorientation of the detector) using a helical calibration phantom regarding its accuracy by a simulation.
Keywords: robotics; roboterröntgen

Tuning of X-Ray Parameters for Noise Reduction of an Image-Based Focus Position Measurement of a C-Arm X-Ray System - Thürauf, Sabine; Vogt, Florian; Hornung, Oliver; Körner, Mario; Nasseri, M. Ali; Knoll, Alois (Proceedings of the Workshop on Alternative Sensing for Robot Perception, IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2015)
In surgery or interventional radiology 2D/3D overlays of X-rays combined with previously recorded 3D volumes support the physician with additional visual information. Typical X-ray systems in these fields are C-arm systems. First of all, the 3D volume and the 2D images need to be registered. Afterwards, if the system moves, errors between the real world pose and the nominal pose of the system appear. One possible way to overcome this problem is an absolute calibration of the system. With this approach the projection geometry can be defined accurately enough for a whole working volume. Therefore, measurements of the end effector pose serve as input. A potential method to determine the pose of the C-arm, is a pose estimation by X-ray observations of a calibration phantom. This work evaluates how the focal spot size, the pixel size and the dose affect the noise at the pose estimation of the C-arm by X-ray observations.
Keywords: robotics; roboterröntgen

RACE RTE: A Runtime Environment for Robust Fault-Tolerant Vehicle Functions - Becker, Klaus; Frtunikj, Jelena; Felser, Meik; Fiege, Ludger; Buckl, Christian; Rothbauer, Stefan; Zhang, Licong; Klein, Cornel (3rd Workshop on Critical Automotive applications - Robustness & Safety (CARS), 2015)
The degree of automated operation in vehicles is increasing continuously. Manufacturers want existing and new functions to be integrated, which drives engineering costs. On the other hand, customers grow accustomed to a steady flow of new functionality on smart phones, partially integrated into their vehicles. In this paper, the Runtime Environment (RTE) of the RACE project is presented. Based on a cross-domain system topology, the RTE executes real-time applications of mixed criticality up to fail-operational behavior. It offers communication and safety mechanisms that are configurable in-field to support Plug&Play scenarios. Since integrated functions often require access to different vehicle domains, the vehicle runtime and configuration data model is reified in the RTE to enable test and verification of all these mechanisms.
Keywords: Model-based Systems Engineering; MbSE

A Model-Driven Engineering Approach for ROS using Ontological Semantics - Zander, Stefan; Heppner, Georg; Neugschwandtner, Georg; Awad, Ramez; Essinger, Marc; Ahmed, Nadia (6th International Workshop on Domain-Specific Languages and models for Robotic systems (DSLRob-15), 2015)

An Ontology for CAD Data and Geometric Constraints as a Link Between Product Models and Semantic Robot Task Descriptions - Perzylo, Alexander; Somani, Nikhil; Rickert, Markus; Knoll, Alois (Proceedings of the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2015)
In this paper, we introduce an approach for leveraging CAD description to a semantic level, in order to link additional knowledge to CAD models and to exploit resulting synergy effects. This has been achieved by designing a description language, based on the Web Ontology Language (OWL), that is used to define boundary representations (BREP) of objects. This involves representing geometric entities in a semantic meaningful way, e.g., a circle is defined by a coordinate frame and a radius instead of a set of polygons. Furthermore, the scope of this semantic description language also covers geometric constraints between multiple objects. Constraints can be specified not only on the object level, but down to single edges or faces of an object. This semantic representation is used to improve a variety of applications, ranging from shape-based object recognition to constraint-based robot task descriptions. Results from a quantitative evaluation are presented to assess the practicability of this approach.
Keywords: robotics; smerobotics

Analysis and Semantic Modeling of Modality Preferences in Industrial Human-Robot Interaction - Profanter, Stefan; Perzylo, Alexander; Somani, Nikhil; Rickert, Markus; Knoll, Alois (Proceedings of the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2015)
Intuitive programming of industrial robots is especially important for small and medium-sized enterprises. We evaluated four different input modalities (touch, gesture, speech, 3D tracking device) regarding their preference, usability, and intuitiveness for robot programming. A Wizard-of-Oz experiment was conducted with 30 participants and its results show that most users prefer touch and gesture input over 3D tracking device input, whereas speech input was the least preferred input modality. The results also indicate that there are gender specific differences for preferred input modalities. We show how the results of the user study can be formalized in a semantic description language in such a way that a cognitive robotic workcell can benefit from the additional knowledge of input and output modalities, task parameter types, and preferred combinations of the two.
Keywords: robotics; smerobotics

Behavioral Type-based Monitoring for IEC 61499 - Wenger, Monika; Blech, Jan Olaf; Zoitl, Alois (20th IEEE International Conference on Emerging Technologies and Factory Automation (ETFA), 2015)

Constraint-Based Task Programming with CAD Semantics: From Intuitive Specification to Real-Time Control - Somani, Nikhil; Gaschler, Andre; Rickert, Markus; Perzylo, Alexander; Knoll, Alois (Proceedings of the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2015)
In this paper, we propose a framework for intuitive task-based programming of robots using geometric inter-relational constraints. The intended applications of this framework are robot programming interfaces that use semantically rich task descriptions, allow intuitive (re-)programming, and are suitable for non-expert users typically found in SMEs. A key concept in this work is the use of CAD semantics to represent geometric entities in the robotic workcell. The robot tasks are then represented as a set of geometrical inter-relational constraints, which are solved in real-time to be executed on the robot. Since these constraints often specify the target pose only partially, the robot can be controlled to move in the constraints' null space in order to handle external disturbances or further optimize the robot's pose during runtime. Geometrical inter-relational constraints are easy to understand and can be intuitively specified using CAD software. A number of applications common in industrial robotic scenarios have been chosen to highlight the advantages of the presented approach vis-à-vis the state-of-the-art approaches.
Keywords: robotics; smerobotics

Heuristic Search in Belief Space for Motion Planning under Map and Actuator Uncertainties - Lenz, David; Rickert, Markus; Knoll, Alois (Proceedings of the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2015)
In order to fully exploit the capabilities of a robotic system, it is necessary to consider the limitations and errors of actuators and sensors already during the motion planning phase. In this paper, a framework for path planning is introduced, that uses heuristic search to build up a search graph in belief space, an extension to the deterministic state space considering the uncertainty associated with this space. As sources of uncertainty, actuator errors and map uncertainties are considered. We apply this framework to various scenarios for a non-holonomic vehicle and compare the resulting paths to heuristic state space planners and LQG-MP with the help of simulations. As a result, paths generated with this framework could either not be found with worst-case assumptions or have a higher probability of being successfully executed compared to planners with more relaxed constraints.
Keywords: autonomous driving; robotics

Kinodynamic Motion Planning with Space-Time Exploration Guided Heuristic Search for Car-Like Robots in Dynamic Environments - Chen, Chao; Rickert, Markus; Knoll, Alois (Proceedings of the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2015)
The Space Exploration Guided Heuristic Search (SEHS) method solves the motion planning problem, especially for car-like robots, in two steps: a circle-based space exploration in the workspace followed by a circle-guided heuristic search in the configuration space. This paper extends this approach for kinodynamic planning in dynamic environments by performing the exploration in both space and time domains. Thus, a time-dependent heuristic is constructed to guide the search algorithm applying a kinodynamic vehicle model. Furthermore, the search step-size and state resolution are adapted incrementally to guarantee resolution completeness with a trade-off for efficiency. The performance of Space-Time Exploration Guided Heuristic Search (STEHS) approach is verified in two scenarios and compared with several search-based and sampling-based methods.
Keywords: autonomous driving; robotics

Multimodal Binding of Parameters for Task-Based Robot Programming Based on Semantic Descriptions of Modalities and Parameter Types - Perzylo, Alexander; Somani, Nikhil; Profanter, Stefan; Rickert, Markus; Knoll, Alois (Proceedings of the Workshop on Multimodal Semantics for Robotic Systems, IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2015)
In this paper, we describe our ongoing efforts to design a cognition-enabled industrial robotic workcell, which significantly increases the efficiency of teaching and adapting robot tasks. We have designed a formalism to match task parameter and input modality types, in order to infer suitable means for binding values to those parameters. All modalities are integrated through a graphical user interface, which a human operator can use to program industrial robots in an intuitive way by arbitrarily choosing modalities according to his or her preference.
Keywords: robotics; smerobotics

Optimizing Schedules for Adaptable Manufacturing Systems - Keddis, Nadine; Javed, Bilal; Igna, Georgeta; Zoitl, Alois (IEEE Conference on Emerging Technologies and Factory Automation, 2015)
Adaptability and changeability are becoming the key features of future manufacturing. With adaptability comes a need to dynamically and frequently change factory topologies throughout the life-cycle of manufacturing systems. These changes are necessary to respond to changes in markets that result in new products, production volumes, and product variants. In addition to flexibly switching between different setups, the resulting schedules still have to be optimal to a certain extent to stay profitable. In this paper, we extend a capability-based planning approach to generate timed automata models that are used to solve the scheduling problem. The capability-based approach automatically generates an action sequence that defines all necessary production resources and operations for a product. The action sequence is then automatically transformed into models in UPPAAL - a model-checker for timed automata - and used to generate a schedule for production orders. The result can then be executed on the different production resources. An example scenario based on an industrial production system used for educational purposes shows the suitability of this approach.
Keywords: Automata; Job shop scheduling; Production facilities; Optimal scheduling; Schedules; Manufacturing systems; Model-based Systems Engineering; MbSE

The SFIT tool: Supporting assembly planners to deal with new product variants - Kondeva, Antoaneta; Aravantinos, Vincent; Hermanns, Lukas; Hörauf, Leenhard (Proceedings of the 2015 IEEE 20th Conference on Emerging Technologies & Factory Automation (ETFA), 2015)
Increasing the number of product variants expected by the customers; decreasing product life cycles; operating existing production systems as long as possible, all these factors make the planning of new or the reconfiguration of existing assembly systems a complex and time-consuming task. Yet assembly planners lack adequate tool support in taking the right decisions by such competitive goals and to handle this complexity. In this paper, we present a tool which supports the modelling of the different relevant aspects in a clearly independent way such as products, assembly lines, processes and especially the explicit relationships between these aspects such as which process step is executed on which station or which part is used in which process step. Having the information clearly input by the user, various analyses can be provided to support the assembly planner in his/her design decisions.
Keywords: product; assembly planning support; automatic consistency checking; part variants; model-based systems engineering; MbSE

Efficient Impact Analysis of Changes in the Requirements of Manufacturing Automation Systems - Teufl, Sabine; Hackenberg, Georg (IFAC Proceedings Volumes, 2015)
Various drivers, especially increasing market dynamics, force industrial enterprises to evolve their production facilities ever more frequently. Analyzing the impact of changed requirements on the production facilities early in the engineering process would facilitate the estimation of resulting costs and therefore reduce project risk. In industrial practice, requirements specifications are typically textual lists and only structured by a table of contents; an analysis of the impact of changes within the requirements specification is extensive, as no documented information is available about how the requirements and other elements of the requirements specification depend on each other. To identify impacts of changes in a requirements specification more efficiently, this paper proposes a model-based approach that classifies the elements of a requirements specification according to their contents and based on the classification preselects automatically candidate elements of the requirements specification that are possibly affected by the change. This paper shows the application of the approach on the manufacturing automation systems domain by means of a pick and place unit (PPU) demonstrator. The technical validation demonstrates that in the example of the PPU the impact analysis is more efficient with a content model than on an unstructured list; the effort for impact analysis is reduced further when adapting the content model to the manufacturing automation systems domain.
Keywords: Model-based Requirements Engineering; Requirements Analysis; Impact Analysis; Manufacturing System; Knowledge Acquisition; Systems Engineering

Performance-oriented DevOps: A Research Agenda - Brunnert, Andreas; van Hoorn, André; Willnecker, Felix; Danciu, Alexandru; Hasselbring, Wilhelm; Heger, Christoph; Herbst, Nikolas; Jamshidi, Pooyan; Jung, Reiner; von Kistowski, Joakim; Koziolek, Anne; Kroß, Johannes; et al. (SPEC Research Group — DevOps Performance Working Group, Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation (SPEC), 2015)

From Internet of Things Mashups to Model-based Development - Prehofer, Christian; Chiarabini, Luca (The 2nd IEEE International Workshop on Big Data Management for the Internet of Things, 2015)

Long-Term Power Demand Recording of Running Mobile Applications - Kindelsberger, Julia; Willnecker, Felix; Krcmar, Helmut (Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Global Software Engineering, 2015)

Path Planning with Orientation-Aware Space Exploration Guided Heuristic Search for Autonomous Parking and Maneuvering - Chen, Chao; Rickert, Markus; Knoll, Alois (Proceedings of the IEEE Intelligent Vehicles Symposium (IV), 2015)
Due to the nonholonomic constraints of the vehicle kinematics, parking and maneuvering a car in a narrow clustered space are among the most challenging driving tasks. This paper introduces an extended version of Space Exploration Guided Heuristic Search (SEHS) method, called Orientation-Aware Space Exploration Guided Heuristic Search (OSEHS), to solve the path planning problems for parking and maneuvering. This method considers the orientation of a vehicle in the space exploration phase to achieve knowledge about driving directions. Such information is exploited later in the heuristic search phase to improve the planning efficiency in maneuvering scenarios. This approach is not bound to the specific domain knowledge about a parking or maneuvering task, but obtains the space dimension and orientation information through a generic exploration procedure. Therefore, it is convenient to integrate the maneuvering ability into a general SEHS motion planning framework. Experiments show that the OSEHS approach produces better results than common random-sampling methods and general heuristic search methods.
Keywords: autonomous driving; robotics

Plug-and-Produce für Cyber-Physische Produktionssysteme – Eine Fallstudie im OPAK-Projekt - Henning, Steffen; Brandenbourger, Benjamin; Helbig, Tobias; Niggemann, Oliver (2015)
Das Engineering von immer komplexeren Produktionsanlagen benötigt zunehmend mehr Zeit. Außerdem ist dieser Vorgang sehr fehleranfällig. In diesem Beitrag wird das OPAK-Projekt vorgestellt, in welchem modulare, intelligente Hardware-/Softwarekomponenten und ein neuartiges Engineering-Verfahren entwickelt werden, um das Engineering einfach und effektiv zu gestalten. Es wird gezeigt, dass der hier beschriebene Ansatz zeitsparend und intuitiv für den Anwender ist und somit eine Lösung für die Herausforderung des schnellen Engineering bietet.

Task Planning for Highly Automated Driving - Chen, Chao; Gaschler, Andre; Rickert, Markus; Knoll, Alois (Proceedings of the IEEE Intelligent Vehicles Symposium (IV), 2015)
A hybrid planning approach is presented in this paper with the focus of integrating task planning and motion planning for highly automated driving. In the context of task planning, the vehicle and environment states are transformed from the continuous configuration space to a discrete state space. A planning problem is solved by a search algorithm for an optimal task sequence to reach the goal conditions in the symbolic space, regarding constraints such as space topology, place occupation, and traffic rules. Each task can be mapped to a specific driving maneuver and solved with a dedicated motion planning method in the continuous configuration space. The task planning approach not only bridges the gap between high-level navigation and low-level motion planning, but also provides a modular domain description that can be developed and verified individually. Our task planner for automated driving is evaluated in several scenarios with prior knowledge about the road-map and sensing range of the vehicle. Behavior that is otherwise complex to achieve is planned according to traffic rules and re-planned regarding the on-line perception.
Keywords: autonomous driving; robotics

Toward Efficient Robot Teach-In and Semantic Process Descriptions for Small Lot Sizes - Perzylo, Alexander; Somani, Nikhil; Profanter, Stefan; Rickert, Markus; Knoll, Alois (Proceedings of the Workshop on Combining AI Reasoning and Cognitive Science with Robotics, Robotics: Science and Systems (RSS), 2015)
We present a novel robot programming methodology that is aimed at reducing the level of robotics expert knowledge needed to operate industrial robotic systems by explicitly modeling this knowledge and abstracting it from the user. Most of the current robot programming paradigms are either user-centric and fully-specify the robot's task to the lowest detail (used mostly in large industrial robotic systems) or fully autonomous solutions that generate the tasks from a problem description (used often in service and personal robotics). We present an approach that is user-centric and can interpret underspecified robot tasks. Such task descriptions make the system amenable for users that are experts in a particular domain, but have limited knowledge about robotics and are thus not able to specify low-level details and instructions. Semantic models for all involved entities enable automatic reasoning about underspecified tasks and missing pieces of information. We demonstrate this approach on an industrial assembly use-case and present a preliminary evaluation—both qualitatively and quantitatively—vis-à-vis state-of-the-art solutions available from industrial robot manufacturers.
Keywords: robotics; smerobotics

Extending the Knowledge of Volumes Approach to Robot Task Planning with Efficient Geometric Predicates - Gaschler, Andre; Kessler, Ingmar; Petrick, Ronald P. A.; Knoll, Alois (Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2015)
Keywords: robotics; james; smerobotics

Stochastic Model Predictive Controller with Chance Constraints for Comfortable and Safe Driving Behavior of Autonomous Vehicles - Lenz, David; Kessler, Tobias; Knoll, Alois (Proceedings of the IEEE Intelligent Vehicles Symposium, 2015)
Keywords: autonomous driving; robotics

Adaptable Capability-Based Planning - Keddis, Nadine; Zoitl, Alois; Knoll, Alois (IFAC Symposium on Information Control Problems in Manufacturing (INCOM), 2015)

Product-Driven Generation of Action Sequences for Adaptable Manufacturing Systems - Keddis, Nadine; Kainz, Gerd; Zoitl, Alois (IFAC Symposium on Information Control Problems in Manufacturing (INCOM), 2015)

Formalizing Performance Degradation Strategies as an Enabler for Selfhealing Smart Energy Systems - Gupta, Pragya Kirti; Becker, Klaus; Duchon, Markus; Schätz, Bernhard (Tagungsband Dagstuhl-Workshop MBEES: Modellbasierte Entwicklung eingebetteter Systeme XI Model-Based Development of Embedded Systems, 2015)
Smart behavior in reactive systems can be achieved when systems can react appropriately to environmental changes. These adjustments in behavior can be achieved through predefined strategies. In this work, we present a formal specification of performance degradation where the overall performance of the system is intentionally lowered in order to ensure high availability of the core services of the system in fault scenarios. We demonstrate the application of this strategy in the energy domain. Power outages can be foreseen as one of the big challenges in the smart grid functionality. In such a power outage situation, it is essential to support high priority services at all times. During such situations, to prolong support for high priority services , we propose an approach using constraint-based formal modeling by developing the degradation strategy. A service is selected or deactivated based on its priority, energy consumption and its performance contribution. As a consequence, when services have to be disabled due to insufficient available energy, the performance of the overall system degrades, but high priority services remain available. We validate our approach by using the Z3 SMT solver to identify a valid degradation strategy scheme for a fault scenario in the fortiss smart energy living lab demonstrator.
Keywords: Model-based Systems Engineering; MbSE

Safety Case Driven Model-Based Systems Construction - Voss, Sebastian; Cârlan, Carmen; Schätz, Bernhard; Kelly, Tim (Proceedings of the 2nd International IFIP Workshop on Emerging Ideas and Trends in Engineering of Cyber-Physical Systems (EITEC 2015), 2015)
Keywords: Model-based Systems Engineering; MbSE

Deployment Calculation and Analysis for a Fault-Tolerant System Platform - Becker, Klaus; Schätz, Bernhard (11th Dagstuhl-Workshop on Model-Based Development of Embedded Systems (MBEES), 2015)
In many embedded systems like in the automotive domain, safety-critical features are increasingly realized by software. Some of these features are often required to behave fail-operational, meaning that they must stay alive even in the presence of random hardware failures. In this paper, we introduce a constraint-based approach to calculate valid deployments of mixed critical software components to the execution nodes of a new fault-tolerant SW/HW architecture for electric vehicles. To avoid harm, faulty execution nodes have to be isolated from the remaining system. We treat the changes to the deployment that are required after isolations of execution nodes to keep those software components alive that realize fail-operational features. However, the remaining system resources may become insufficient to execute the full set of software components after such isolations. Hence, some components might have to be deactivated, meaning that features might get lost. Our approach allows to formally analyze which subset of features can still be provided after one or more isolations. We present an arithmetic system model of the deployment problem that can be solved by an SMT solver.
Keywords: Fault-tolerance; fail-operational; deployment; model-based systems engineering; MbSE

Optimization of Component Allocations in Middleware Platforms using Performance Models - Willnecker, Felix (Software Engineering & Management 2015, 2015)
Distributed enterprise applications are typically implemented as system-of systems composed of components and linked via middleware. These systems often utilize corresponding resources far below available capacity. In order to increase resource utilizations the consolidation of components demands several tests on environments comparable to the production system. Performance models can be used to landscape such system architectures and to simulate changes in the component topology or resource environment without harming production systems. Therefore, this work aims at extracting performance models from distributed middleware platforms. Based on these models, an architecture optimizer is built to test different allocation topologies. Subsequently, the optimized model is simulated and the prediction accuracy of architecture changes is evaluated in this work. This allows architects to evaluate component changes and topology variations without a replica of the production system.

Automatic Extraction of Session-Based Workload Specifications for Architecture-Level Performance Models. - Vögele, Christian; van Hoorn, André; Krcmar, Helmut (Proceedings of the International Workshop on Large-Scale Testing, 2015)
Keywords: Load Tests; Palladio Component Model; Session- based Application Systems; Workload Specications

Model-based Performance Evaluation of Large-Scale Smart Metering Architectures - Kroß, Johannes; Brunnert, Andreas; Prehofer, Christian; Runkler, Thomas A.; Krcmar, Helmut (Proceedings of the 4th International Workshop on Large-Scale Testing, 2015)
Smart meter devices are used to monitor and control energy consumption and are interlinked with smart grids. Their growing use leads to an extensive amount of available data to be processed and causes smart grids to evolve to large-scale systems of systems. Guaranteeing appropriate scalability and performance characteristics is a tremendous challenge. In this paper, we focus on the provisioning of sufficient computing capacity to efficiently analyze the produced data in such a distributed system. For this purpose, we show the use of performance models to plan and simulate this distributed computation in smart grid systems. It demonstrates how different system architectures can be evaluated and required capacities can be estimated to cope with the occurring data volume. We analyze response times for time-critical tasks and assess the scalability of smart grid systems.
Keywords: Advanced Metering Infrastructure; Evaluation; performance; Smart grid; Smart meter

Modeling Production Workflows in a Mass Customization Era - Keddis, Nadine; Kainz, Gerd; Zoitl, Alois; Knoll, Alois (International Conference on Industrial Technology (ICIT), 2015)

MOPL: A Multi-Modal Path Planner for Generic Manipulation Tasks - Jentzsch, Sören; Gaschler, Andre; Khatib, Oussama; Knoll, Alois (Proceedings of the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2015)
Keywords: robotics; james; smerobotics

A Neural Transfer Function for a Smooth and Differentiable Transition Between Additive and Multiplicative Interactions - Urban, Sebastian; van der Smagt, Patrick (arXiv, 2015)

An assistive decision-and-control architecture for force-sensitive hand–arm systems driven by human–machine interfaces - Vogel, Joern; Haddadin, S.; Jarosiewicz, B; JD, Simeral; Bacher, D; MM, Hochberg; JP, Donoghue; van der Smagt, Patrick (The International Journal of Robotics Research (IJRR), 2015)

An Automated Electric Vehicle Prototype Showing New Trends in Automotive Architectures - Buechel, Martin; Frtunikj, Jelena; Becker, Klaus; Sommer, Stephan; Buckl, Christian; Armbruster, Michael; Klein, Cornel; Marek, Andre; Zirkler, Andreas; Knoll, Alois (IEEE 18th International Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITSC), 2015)
The automotive domain is challenged by the increasing importance of Information Technology (IT) based functions. To show the possibilities of modern IT systems, a demonstrator car was developed in RACE (Robust and Reliant Automotive Computing Environment for Future eCars) based on a completely redesigned E/E architecture, which supports the integration of mixed-criticality components and offers features like Plug&Play. This paper presents the architecture and components of this vehicle prototype, which is equipped with modern systems such as Steer-by-Wire without mechanical fallback. It was designed to support future driver assistance systems, e.g. to carry out autonomous parking maneuvers onto an inductive charging station, a task, which is hard to achieve accurately enough for a human driver. Therefore, a special emphasis lies on the description of the sensor set for automated operation.
Keywords: Automated Vehicles; automotive architecture; autonomous driving; electric vehicle; Vehicle Prototype; Model-based Systems Engineering; MbSE

An Energy Management System for a Smart Office Environment - Rottondi, Cristina; Duchon, Markus; Koss, Dagmar; Verticale, Giacomo; Schätz, Bernhard (Workshop on Middleware for a Smarter Use of Electric Energy, 2015)

Analyzing Graceful Degradation for Mixed Critical Fault-Tolerant Real-Time Systems - Becker, Klaus; Voss, Sebastian (18th IEEE Symposium on Real-Time Distributed Computing (ISORC), 2015)
Fault-tolerant distributed embedded systems have to react properly on the occurrence of faults in order to avoid harm to the system or its environment. Faulty system resources have to be isolated from the remaining system. Hence, these resources become unavailable, leading to a decreasing number of available resources and input data. In such cases, mechanisms like graceful degradation may be applied to ensure that the system does not turn off completely, but degrades its provided set of functional features gracefully. It must be ensured that the remaining intact resources are efficiently used to execute at least those features, which are required to behave fail-operational. In this paper, we investigate deployments of mixed-critical software components to a fault-tolerant system platform. We introduce a formal model of software components and their publish/subscribe based communication channels. We use this model to analyze the graceful degradation of the system in different scenarios of failing execution hardware. This includes also the explicit deactivation of software components due to unavailable required input data. Our analysis is based on using an SMT solver and contributes to guarantee that all requirements with respect to fail-operationality are met by the system design. The approach is evaluated by an example and a scalability analysis.
Keywords: Dependability; Fault Tolerance; Graceful Degradation; Mixed Criticality; Deployment; Formal Methods; SMT; Model-based Systems Engineering; MbSE

Applying Pay-burst-only-once Principle for Periodic Power Management in Hard Real-time Pipelined Multiprocessor Systems - Chen, Gang; Huang, Kai; Buckl, Christian; Knoll, Alois (ACM Transactions on Design Automation of Electronic Systems (TODAES), 2015)
Keywords: tu9

AutoFOCUS 3: Tooling Concepts for Seamless, Model-based Development of Embedded Systems - Aravantinos, Vincent; Voss, Sebastian; Teufl, Sabine; Hölzl, Florian; Schätz, Bernhard (ACES-MB&WUCOR@MoDELS 2015, 2015)
This paper presents tooling concepts in AutoFOCUS 3 supporting the development of software-intensive embedded system design. AutoFOCUS 3 is a highly integrated model-based tool covering the complete development process from requirements elicitation, deployment, the modelling of the hardware platform to code generation. This is achieved thanks to precise static and dynamic semantics based on the FOCUS theory. Models are used for requirements, for the software architecture (SA), for the hardware platform and for relations between those different viewpoints: traces from requirements to the SA, refinements between SAs, and deployments of the SA to the platform. This holistic usage of models allows the provision of a wide range of analysis and synthesis techniques such as testing, model checking and deployment and scheduling generation. In this paper, we demonstrate how tooling concepts on different steps in the development process look like, based on these integrated models and implemented in AutoFOCUS 3.
Keywords: AutoFOCUS3; Seamless MBD; Model-Based Development; Embedded Systems; Tooling Concept; Tooling; model-based systems engineering; MbSE

Automated Failure Propagation using Inner Port Dependency Traces - Höfig, Kai; Zeller, Marc; Schorp, Konstantin (Proceedings of the 11th International ACM SIGSOFT Conference on Quality of Software Architectures - QoSA '15, 2015)

Automating Design-Space Exploration: Optimal Deployment of Automotive SW-Components in an ISO26262 Context - Schätz, Bernhard; Zverlov, Sergey; Voss, Sebastian (Design Automation Conference (DAC), 2015 52st ACM/EDAC/IEEE, 2015)
With a growing demand for complex, safety-critical features in automotive vehicles, functional safety is a key issues of automotive software development. Consequently, standards like ISO26262 propose methods and techniques for the systematic development of automotive software. Furthermore, the growing amount of functionality - including active safety systems or automated driver assistance functions - on the control of the vehicle dynamics and the correspondingly used more powerful electronic platforms requires methods supporting the development of systems in an increasingly complex design space. In this contribution, an approach is presented that supports the allocation of software functions to hardware elements in an automated fashion, respecting the separation constraints concerning assurances levels.
Keywords: AutoFOCUS3; design-space exploration; DSE; deployment synthesis; mapping; model-based systems engineering; MbSE

Collecting Simulation Scenarios by Analyzing Physical Test Drives - Minnerup, Pascal; Kessler, Tobias; Knoll, Alois (IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems, 2015)
Keywords: autonomous driving

Combining SCADA, CIM, GridLab-D and Akka for Smart Grid Co-Simulation - Bytschkow, Denis; Zellner, Martin; Duchon, Markus (Innovative Smart Grid Technologies (ISGT), IEEE PES, 2015)

Combining unsupervised learning and discrimination for 3d action recognition - Chen, Guang; Clarke, Daniel; Giuliani, Manuel; Gaschler, Andre; Knoll, Alois (Signal Processing,Elsevier, 2015)

Comparing the Accuracy of Resource Demand Measurement and Estimation Techniques - Willnecker, Felix; Dlugi, Markus; Brunnert, Andreas; Spinner, Simon; Kounev, Samuel; Gottesheim, Wolfgang (Computer Performance Engineering, 2015)
Keywords: Performance model generation; Resource demand measurements; Resource demand estimations

Decision Objects for IT Cooperation Decisions in the Public Sector - Jakob, Markus; Wolf, Petra; Krcmar, Helmut (Proceedings of the 15th European Conference on eGovernment 2015: ECEG 2015, 2015)

E-Government Stakeholder Analysis and Management Based on Stakeholder Interactions and Resource Dependencies - Balta, Dian; Greger, Vanessa; Wolf, Petra; Krcmar, Helmut (48th Hawaii International Conference on Systems Science (HICSS 2015), 2015)

Efficient Empowerment - Karl, Maximilian; Bayer, Justin; van der Smagt, Patrick (arXiv, 2015)

Efficient movement representation by embedding Dynamic Movement Primitives in Deep Autoencoders - Chen, Nutan; Bayer, Justin; Urban, Sebastian; van der Smagt, Patrick (Proc. 2015 IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots, 2015)

Fast Adaptive Weight Noise - Bayer, Justin; Karl, Maximilian; Korhammer, Daniela; van der Smagt, Patrick (arXiv, 2015)

FlowNet: Learning Optical Flow with Convolutional Networks - Fischer, P; Dosovitskiy, A; Ilg, E; Harizbas, C.; Golkov, V.; van der Smagt, Patrick; Cremers, D; Brox, T (arXiv, 2015)

Full-Stack Performance Model Evaluation using Probabilistic Garbage Collection Simulation - Willnecker, Felix; Brunnert, Andreas; Koch-Kemper, Bernhard (Symposium on Software Performance (SSP, 2015)

Generating Grammars for Natural Language Understanding from Knowledge about Actions and Objects - Perzylo, Alexander; Griffiths, Sascha; Lafrenz, Reinhard; Knoll, Alois (Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Biomimetics (ROBIO), 2015)
Many applications in the fields of Service Robotics and Industrial Human-Robot Collaboration, require interaction with a human in a potentially unstructured environment. In many cases, a natural language interface can be helpful, but it requires powerful means of knowledge representation and processing, e.g., using ontologies and reasoning. In this paper we present a framework for the automatic generation of natural language grammars from ontological descriptions of robot tasks and interaction objects, and their use in a natural language interface. Robots can use it locally or even share this interface component through the RoboEarth framework in order to benefit from features such as referent grounding, ambiguity resolution, task identification, and task assignment.
Keywords: robotics; smerobotics

Industrial HRI Experiments in the SMErobotics project - Profanter, Stefan (IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Workshop: Towards Standardized Experiments in Human-Robot Interactions, 2015)
Invited speaker

Knowledge-Level Planning for Robot Task Planning and Human-Robot Interaction - Petrick, Ronald P. A.; Gaschler, Andre (RSS Workshop on Combining AI Reasoning and Cognitive Science with Robotics, 2015)
Keywords: robotics; james

Ladestrategien für E-Fahrzeuge: Koordination vs. Optimierung - Bytschkow, Denis; Duchon, Markus (ETG-Fachbericht-Von Smart Grids zu Smart Markets 2015, 2015)

Landscaping Performance Research at the ICPE and Its Predecessors: A Systematic Literature Review - Danciu, Alexandru; Kroß, Johannes; Brunnert, Andreas; Willnecker, Felix; Vögele, Christian; Kapadia, Anand; Krcmar, Helmut (Proceedings of the 6th ACM/SPEC International Conference on Performance Engineering, 2015)
Keywords: icpe; performance engineering; performance research; sipew; systematic literature review; wosp

Measuring Fingertip Forces from Camera Images for Random Finger Poses - Chen, Nutan; Urban, Sebastian; Bayer, Justin; van der Smagt, Patrick (Proc. IEEE International Conference on Robotics and System (IROS), 2015)

Natural Language Processing Techniques for Document Classification in IT Benchmarking - Automated Identification of Domain Specific Terms - Pfaff, Matthias; Krcmar, Helmut (17th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems (ICEIS), 2015)

Real-time Cerebellar Control of a Compliant Robotic Arm - Richter, Christoph; Jentzsch, Sören; Röhrbein, Florian; van der Smagt, Patrick; Conradt, Jörg (BCCN conference, Heidelberg, 2015)

Responsive Fingers – Capacitive Sensing During Object Manipulation - Mühlbacher-Karrer, Stephan; Gaschler, Andre; Zangl, Hubert (Proceedings of the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2015)
Keywords: robotics

Robust Detection of Anomalies via Sparse Methods - Milacskí, Zoltán A.; Ludersdorfer, Marvin; van der Smagt, Patrick; Lörincz, Andräs (Proc. ICONIP, 2015)

Standardization of Service Descriptions, Process Models and Forms in Public Administrations: Results from a Survey in Germany - Scholta, Hendrik; Balta, Dian; Wolf, Petra; Becker, Jörg; Krcmar, Helmut (Electronic Government and Electronic Participation, 2015)

Stream Processing on Demand for Lambda Architectures - Kroß, Johannes; Brunnert, Andreas; Prehofer, Christian; Runkler, Thomas A.; Krcmar, Helmut (Computer Performance Engineering, 2015)
Growing amounts of data and the demand to process them within time constraints have led to the development of big data systems. A generic principle to design such systems that allows for low latency results is called the lambda architecture. It defines that data is analyzed twice by combining batch and stream processing techniques in order to provide a real time view. This redundant processing of data makes this architecture very expensive. In cases where process results are not continuously required to be low latency or time constraints lie within several minutes, a clear decision whether both processing layers are inevitable is not possible yet. Therefore, we propose stream processing on demand within the lambda architecture in order to efficiently use resources and reduce hardware investments. We use performance models as an analytical decision-making solution to predict response times of batch processes and to decide when to additionally deploy stream processes. By the example of a smart energy use case we implement and evaluate the accuracy of our proposed solution.
Keywords: Lambda architecture; Big data; Performance; Model; Evaluation

Textual model-based software/system architecture documentation using MPS - Aravantinos, Vincent; Miyamoto, Kenji; Molotnikov, Zaur; Regnat, Nikolaus; Schätz, Bernhard (Software Engineering & Management, 2015)
A system architecture provides essential communication means between the architect and the user of the system diminishing thus the risk of misunderstanding during the development phase. In many domains, the tools used for documentation are word processors, typically Microsoft Word. However such tools allow to manipulate text with little structure only thus potentially yielding many inconsistencies in the document. In this paper, we report on a case study making use of textual models and model-based editors in order to develop such a documentation system for Siemens AG. We propose here to transfer these techniques to a new domain: (non-necessarily software) system documentation. The use of models allows to introduce more semantics into the editor, with the concrete effect of imposing more structure on the document to ensure the consistency of the document and thus prevent issues earlier in the development. We implemented the above process using the model-based programming environment MPS.
Keywords: Model-based Systems Engineering; MbSE

The Bounding Mesh Algorithm - Gaschler, Andre; Fischer, Quirin; Knoll, Alois (Technische Universität München, 2015)
We present an algorithm to generate a one-sided approximation of a given triangular mesh. We refer to such an approximate mesh as a bounding mesh, which includes the original mesh and has fewer vertices. Likewise, an inner bounding mesh is defined as an approximate mesh that is included by a given mesh. Our proposed bounding mesh algorithm performs iterative edge contractions and can generate both types of approximation. Contrary to regular, two-sided mesh approximation, which is a well studied subject in computer graphics, our algorithm is novel and one of a handful approaches to one-sided mesh approximation. While we are the first to apply bounding meshes to safe collision detection, path planning, and robot motion planning, applications range further to computer geometry and computer graphics. The bounding mesh algorithm helps pre-processing complex geometries and increases the efficiency of existing geometric algorithms, especially those that search in a bounding volume hierarchy. It can speed up search, intersection and inclusion detection, as well as silhouette, clipping, and other operations, acting as an intermediate level of approximation between coarser bounding boxes or bounding spheres and the exact mesh. Furthermore, the bounding mesh algorithm combines well with approximate convex decomposition to generate a bounding set of convexes with very few vertices, which is an efficient data structure for intersection, distance and normal computation, as well as other geometric operations.
Keywords: robotics; james; smerobotics

Towards a Performance Model Management Repository for Component-based Enterprise Applications - Brunnert, Andreas; Danciu, Alexandru; Krcmar, Helmut (Proceedings of the 6th ACM/SPEC International Conference on Performance Engineering, 2015)
Keywords: component-based performance model; Enterprise Application; Palladio Component Model; Performance Evaluation; performance model repository

Two-dimensional orthoglide mechanism for revealing areflexive human arm mechanical properties - Höppner, Hannes; Grebenstein, Markus; van der Smagt, Patrick (Proc. IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2015), 2015)

Using Dynatrace Monitoring Data for Generating Performance Models of Java EE Applications - Willnecker, Felix; Brunnert, Andreas; Gottesheim, Wolfgang; Krcmar, Helmut (Proceedings of the 6th ACM/SPEC International Conference on Performance Engineering, 2015)
This paper conducts a systematic literature review of papers published in the proceedings of the International Conference on Performance Engineering (ICPE) and its predecessors. It provides an overview of prevailing topics within the community over time. We look at research and contribution facets that have been used to address these topics. Trends are outlined in terms of evaluation methods to validate contributions. The results are complemented with a geographical and organizational dimension. The paper concludes with a look at the top ten contributing countries and organizations for this purpose.
Keywords: application performance management; load testing; Performance Evaluation

Using Knowledge Discovery for Autonomous Decision Making in Smart Grid Nodes - Gupta, Pragya Kirti; Gibtner, Ann Katrin; Duchon, Markus; Koss, Dagmar; Schätz, Bernhard (2015)

Why Realization Mismatches Expectations of E-Government Project Benefits? Towards Benefit Realization Planning - Balta, Dian; Greger, Vanessa; Wolf, Petra; Krcmar, Helmut (Electronic Government: 14th IFIP WG 8.5 International Conference, EGOV 2015, 2015)

Balancing Exploration and Exploitation in Sampling-Based Motion Planning - Rickert, Markus; Sieverling, Arne; Brock, Oliver (IEEE Transactions on Robotics, 2014)
We present the exploring/exploiting tree (EET) algorithm for motion planning. The EET planner deliberately trades probabilistic completeness for computational efficiency. This tradeoff enables the EET planner to outperform state-of-the-art sampling-based planners by up to three orders of magnitude. We show that these considerable speedups apply for a variety of challenging real-world motion planning problems. The performance improvements are achieved by leveraging work space information to continuously adjust the sampling behavior of the planner. When the available information captures the planning problem's inherent structure, the planner's sampler becomes increasingly exploitative. When the available information is less accurate, the planner automatically compensates by increasing local configuration space exploration. We show that active balancing of exploration and exploitation based on workspace information can be a key ingredient to enabling highly efficient motion planning in practical scenarios.
Keywords: robotics; motion planning; path planning; robotics library

Human Activity Recognition in the Context of Industrial Human-Robot Interaction - Roitberg, Alina; Perzylo, Alexander; Somani, Nikhil; Giuliani, Manuel; Rickert, Markus; Knoll, Alois (Proceedings of the AsiaPacific Signal and Information Processing Association Annual Summit and Conference (APSIPA ASC), 2014)
Human activity recognition is crucial for intuitive cooperation between humans and robots. We present an approach for activity recognition for applications in the context of human-robot interaction in industrial settings. The approach is based on spatial and temporal features derived from skeletal data of human workers performing assembly tasks. These features were used to train a machine learning framework, which classifies discrete time frames with Random Forests and subsequently models temporal dependencies between the resulting states with a Hidden Markov Model. We considered the following three groups of activities: Movement, Gestures, and Object handling. A dataset has been collected which is comprised of 24 recordings of several human workers performing such activities in a human-robot interaction environment, as typically seen at small and medium-sized enterprises. The evaluation shows that the approach achieves a recognition accuracy of up to 88% for some activities and an average accuracy of 73%.
Keywords: robotics; james; smerobotics

Object Recognition Using Constraints from Primitive Shape Matching - Somani, Nikhil; Cai, Caixia; Perzylo, Alexander; Rickert, Markus; Knoll, Alois (Proceedings of the 10th International Symposium on Visual Computing (ISVC'14), 2014)
In this paper, an object recognition and pose estimation approach based on constraints from primitive shape matching is presented. Additionally, an approach for primitive shape detection from point clouds using an energy minimization formulation is presented. Each primitive shape in an object adds geometric constraints on the object's pose. An algorithm is proposed to find minimal sets of primitive shapes which are sufficient to determine the complete 3D position and orientation of a rigid object. The pose is estimated using a linear least squares solver over the combination of constraints enforced by the primitive shapes. Experiments illustrating the primitive shape decomposition of object models, detection of these minimal sets, feature vector calculation for sets of shapes and object pose estimation have been presented on simulated and real data.
Keywords: robotics; smerobotics

A Multi-Display System for Deploying and Controlling Home Automation - Jucheng, Jin; Prehofer, Christian; Dang, Chi-Tai; André, Elisabeth (Proceedings of the Ninth ACM International Conference on Interactive Tabletops and Surfaces, 2014)

Automatic Extraction of Probabilistic Workload Specifications for Load Testing Session-Based Application Systems - van Hoorn, André; Vögele, Christian; Schulz, Eike; Hasselbring, Wilhelm; Krcmar, Helmut (Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Performance Evaluation Methodologies and Tools (VALUETOOLS 2014), 2014)
Keywords: Clustering; Load Test Extraction; load testing; Session- based Application Systems; Workload Specications

Predicting Energy Consumption by Extending the Palladio Component Model. - Willnecker, Felix; Brunnert, Andreas; Krcmar, Helmut (Proceedings of the Symposium on Software Performance (SOSP), 2014)
The rising energy demand in data centers and the limited battery lifetime of mobile devices introduces new challenges for the software engineering community. Addressing these challenges requires ways to measure and predict the energy consumption of software systems. Energy consumption is influenced by the resource demands of a software system, the hardware on which it is running, and its workload.Trade-off decisions between performance and energy can occur. To support these decisions, we propose an extension of the meta-model of the Palladio Component Model (PCM) that allows for energy consumption predictions. Energy consumption is defined as power demand integrated over time. The PCM meta-model is thus extended with a power consumption model element in order to predict the power demand of a software system over time. This paper covers two evaluations for this meta-model extension: one for a Java-based enterprise application (SPECjEnterprise2010) and another one for a mobile application (Runtastic). Predictions using an extended PCM meta-modelfor two SPECjEnterprise2010 deployments match energy consumption measurements with an error below 13 %. Energy consumption predictions for a mobile application match corresponding measurements on the Android operating system with an error of below 17.2 %.

Run-time Adaptive Error and State Management for Open Automotive Systems - Frtunikj, Jelena; Armbruster, Michael; Knoll, Alois (4th Workshop on Open Systems Dependability, IEEE International Symposium on Software Reliability Engineering, 2014)

Adaptive Error and Sensor Management for Autonomous Vehicles: Model-based Approach and Run-time System - Frtunikj, Jelena; Rupanov, Vladimir; Armbruster, Michael; Knoll, Alois (4th International Symposium on Model Based Safety Assessment, 2014)

An RGB-D Based Social Behavior Interpretation System for a Humanoid Social Robot - Zaraki, Abolfazl; Giuliani, Manuel; Dehkordi, Maryam Banitalebi; Mazzei, Daniele; D'ursi, Annamaria; Rossi, Danilo De (Proceedings of 2nd RSI International Conference on Robotics and Mechatronics (ICRoM 2014), 2014)
Best Paper Award, Best Presentation Award
Keywords: robotics

Domain Specific Modeling (DSM) as a Service for the Internet of Things & Services - Moin, Amir H. (International Conference on Internet of Things as a Service (IoTaaS) 2014, 2014)

Sense-Deliberate-Act Cognitive Agents for Sense-Compute-Control Applications in the Internet of Things & Services - Moin, Amir H. (International Conference on Cognitive Internet of Things Technologies (COIOTE) 2014, 2014)

6D Image-based Visual Servoing for Robot Manipulators with Uncalibrated Stereo Cameras - Cai, Caixia; Dean-Leon, Emmanuel; Somani, Nikhil; Knoll, Alois (Proceedings of the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2014)
Keywords: robotics

Access Control for Apps Running on Constrained Devices in the Internet of Things - Mituca, Andrei; Moin, Amir H.; Prehofer, Christian (International Workshop on Secure Internet of Things (SIOT) 2014, 2014)

Model-based Energy Consumption Prediction for Mobile Applications - Willnecker, Felix; Brunnert, Andreas; Krcmar, Helmut (28th International Conference on Informatics for Environmental Protection: ICT for Energy Effieciency, 2014)

Multi-modality gesture detection and recognition with un-supervision, randomization and discrimination - Chen, Guang; Clarke, Daniel; Giuliani, Manuel; Gaschler, Andre; Weikersdorfer, David; Knoll, Alois (In ChaLearn Looking at People Workshop, European Conference on Computer Vision (ECCV2014), 2014)
Keywords: robotics

Distributed MILS architectural approach for secure smart grids - Bytschkow, Denis; Quilbeuf, Jean; Igna, Georgeta; Rueß, Harald (Smart Grid Security, 2014)
Successful decentralized and prosumer-based smart grids need to be at least as dependable and secure as the prevailing one-way, generation-transmission-distribution-consumer power grids. With this motivation in mind, we propose a two-phase model-based design methodology for secure architectural design and secure deployment of such a security architecture on a distributed separation kernel. In particular, we are modeling essential parts of a smart micro grid with several interacting prosumers, and demonstrate exemplary security/privacy requirements of this smart grid. The security policy architecture of this smart grid is deployed on a secure distributed platform, relying on a combination of separation kernels and deterministic network, as developed in the Distributed MILS project.
Keywords: Smart grid security; Distributed MILS; Separation kernel; Formal verification; Security policy architecture; Configuration compiler; Model-based Systems Engineering; MbSE

Understanding and closing the gap between requirements on system and subsystem level - Teufl, Sabine; Böhm, Wolfgang; Pinger, Ralf (Model-Driven Requirements Engineering Workshop (MoDRE), 2014 IEEE 4th International, 2014)
In systems engineering, the increasing complexity of systems is handled by decomposing systems into subsystems. As part of the decomposition typically more abstract system requirements are refined to more detailed subsystem requirements. Refining system requirements to subsystem requirements includes the two steps interface refinement on the system boundaries, and a decomposition of system requirements to subsystem requirements. In order to apply formal analysis and verification techniques on the refinement of requirements, a formal refinement specification is necessary. In this paper we show the results of an exploratory industrial case study provided by Siemens, where we analyzed the refinement from system to subsystem requirements. We show that formal refinement specifications can become very complex, when interface refinement and requirement decompositions are performed in one step. In order to reduce complexity in the formal refinement specification, we introduce a formal restructuring approach for requirements. The main benefits of this restructuring approach are twofold. It enables reuse of requirements and knowledge preservation on the system level when the system architecture changes. Furthermore, quality assurance of the refinement on system level can now be performed independently from the system decomposition.
Keywords: abstract system requirements; Abstracts; Analytical models; Case study; Complexity theory; formal analysis; formal refinement specification; formal restructuring approach; formal specification; formal verification; formal verification techniques; knowledge preservation; Modelling language; Quality assurance; Requirements engineering; requirements reuse; Siemens; subsystem requirements; Syntactics; system architecture; system decomposition; systems engineering

Steuerungsprogramme 4.0 - Kainz, Gerd; Keddis, Nadine; Zoitl, Alois; Buckl, Christian; Pensky, Dirk; Kärcher, Bernd (Automation 2014, 2014)

A Traffic Knowledge Aided Vehicle Motion Planning Engine Based on Space Exploration Guided Heuristic Search - Chen, Chao; Rickert, Markus; Knoll, Alois (Proceedings of the IEEE Intelligent Vehicles Symposium, 2014)
A real-time vehicle motion planning engine is presented in this paper, with the focus on exploiting the prior and online traffic knowledge, e.g., predefined roadmap, prior environment information, behaviour-based motion primitives, within the space exploration guided heuristic search (SEHS) framework. The SEHS algorithm plans a kinodynamic vehicle motion in two steps: a geometric investigation of the free space, followed by a grid-free heuristic search employing primitive motions. These two procedures are generic and possible to take advantage of traffic knowledge. In this paper, the space exploration is supported by a roadmap and the heuristic search benefits from the behaviour-based primitives. Based on this idea, a light weighted motion planning engine is built, with the purpose to handle the traffic knowledge and the planning time in real-time motion planning. The experiments demonstrate that this SEHS motion planning engine is flexible and scalable for practical traffic scenarios with better results than the baseline SEHS motion planner regarding the provided traffic knowledge.
Keywords: autonomous driving; robotics

Action recognition using ensemble weighted multi-instance learning - Chen, Guang; Giuliani, Manuel; Clarke, Daniel; Knoll, Alois (In IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2014)
Keywords: robotics

Cloudburst - Simulating Workload for IaaS Clouds - Kroß, Johannes; Wolke, Andreas (Proceedings of the 2014 IEEE 7th International Conference on Cloud Computing, 2014)
In this work we implemented Cloudburst to generate realistic workload in Infrastructure as a Service cloud testbeds. Our goal was to minimize the memory footprint of such workload generators by leveraging alternative programming paradigms for highly concurrent applications. In contrast to many existing we leverage the concurrency model of the Go programming language instead of threads. Initial benchmarks with Cloudburst and Rain suggest that Cloudburst consumes significantly less memory at the cost of a higher CPU footprint. In our experimental testbed memory is a more critical resource. Leveraging Cloudburst allows us to run larger benchmarks with the same hardware.
Keywords: benchmark; Benchmark testing; cloud computing; Cloudburst; Clouds; concurrency control; Generators; Go programming language concurrency model; IaaS clouds; infrastructure as a service cloud testbeds; Java; load driver; memory footprint minimization; Message systems; Rain; Servers; virtual machines

CloudServiceCheck - Hoberg, Patrick; Reidt, Andreas; Wollersheim, Jan; Krcmar, Helmut (fortiss GmbH, 2014)

Intuitive Robot Tasks with Augmented Reality and Virtual Obstacles - Gaschler, Andre; Springer, Maximilian; Rickert, Markus; Knoll, Alois (Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2014)
Today's industrial robots require expert knowledge and are not profitable for small and medium sized enterprises with their small lot sizes. It is our strong belief that more intuitive robot programming in an augmented reality robot work cell can dramatically simplify re-programming and leverage robotics technology in short production cycles. In this paper, we present a novel augmented reality system for defining virtual obstacles, specifying tool positions, and specifying robot tasks. We evaluate the system in a user study and, more specifically, investigate the input of robot end-effector orientations in general.
Keywords: robotics; james; smerobotics

Using Ellipsis Detection and Word Similarity for Transformation of Spoken Language into Grammatically Valid Sentences - Giuliani, Manuel; Marschall, Thomas; Isard, Amy (Proceedings of the 15th Annual SIGdial Meeting on Discourse and Dialogue (SIGDIAL 2014), 2014)
Keywords: robotics; james

Delta modeling for variant-rich and evolving manufacturing systems - Matthias, Kowal; Legat, Christoph; Lorefice, David; Prehofer, Christian; Schaefer, Ina; Vogel-Heuser, Birgit (Proceedings of the 1st International Workshop on Modern Software Engineering Methods for Industrial Automation, 2014)

Deployment Calculation and Analysis for a Fail-Operational Automotive Platform - Becker, Klaus; Armbruster, Michael; Schätz, Bernhard; Buckl, Christian (1st Workshop on Engineering Dependable Systems of Systems (EDSoS), 2014)
In domains like automotive, safety-critical features are increasingly realized by software. Some features might even require fail-operational behavior, so that they must be provided even in the presence of random hardware failures. A new fault-tolerant SW/HW architecture for electric vehicles provides inherent safety capabilities that enable fail-operational features. In this paper we introduce a formal model of this architecture and an approach to calculate valid deployments of mixed-critical software-components to the execution nodes, while ensuring fail-operational behavior of certain components. Calculated redeployments cover the cases in which faulty execution nodes have to be isolated. This allows to formally analyze which set of features can be provided under decreasing available execution resources.
Keywords: Model-based Systems Engineering; MbSE

CHROMOSOME: A Run-Time Environment for Plug & Play-Capable Embedded Real-Time Systems - Buckl, Christian; Geisinger, Michael; Gulati, Dhiraj; Ruiz-Bertol, Fran J. (Sixth International Workshop on Adaptive and Reconfigurable Embedded Systems (APRES 2014), 2014)
Keywords: chromosome; xme

Designing and Evaluating a Social Gaze-Control System for a Humanoid Robot - Zaraki, Abolfazl; Mazzei, Daniele; Giuliani, Manuel; Rossi, Danilo De (IEEE Transactions on Human-Machine Systems, 2014)
Keywords: Active vision; context-dependent social gaze behavior; human–robot interaction; robotics; scene analysis; social attention

Semantic Integration of Semi-Structured Distributed Data in the Domain of IT Benchmarking - Towards a Domain Specific Ontology - Pfaff, Matthias; Krcmar, Helmut (16th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems (ICEIS 2014), 2014)
In the domain of IT benchmarking a variety of data and information are collected. The collection of this heterogeneous data is usually done in the course of specific benchmarks (e.g. focusing on IT service management topics). This collected knowledge needs to be formalized previous to any data integration, in order to ensure interoperability of different and/or distributed data sources. Even though these data are the basis to identify potentials for IT cost reductions or IT service improvements, a semantic data integration is missing. Building on previous research in IT benchmarking we emphasise the importance of further research in data integration methods. Before we describe why the next step of research needs to focus on the semantic integration of data that typically resides in IT benchmarking, the evolution of IT benchmarking is outlined first. In particular, we motivate why an ontology is required for the domain of IT benchmarking.
Keywords: Coupling and Integrating Heterogeneous Data Sources; Data Mining; Distributed Database Systems

A framework for reliability-aware embedded system design on multiprocessor platforms - Huang, Jia; Barner, Simon; Raabe, Andreas; Buckl, Christian; Knoll, Alois (Microprocessors and Microsystems, 2014)
This paper presents a model-driven framework that provides a tool-supported design flow for fault-tolerant embedded systems. Its system models comprise abstract descriptions of the application and the underlying execution platform. They provide the input to our analysis and optimization techniques that enable the automated exploration of design alternatives for applications with reliability requirements. The automated generation of source code and platform configuration files speeds up the development process. Our contribution is to advance reliability-aware design further into practice by providing an integrated tool framework and removing unrealistic assumptions in the analyzes. The case studies demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach.
Keywords: Embedded systems; Reliability; Fault-tolerance; Design optimization; Model-driven development

Ghost-in-the-Machine: Initial Results - Loth, Sebastian; Giuliani, Manuel; de Ruiter, Jan P. (Proceedings of the 9th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI 2014), 2014)
Keywords: robotics; james

Tool Support for Integrated Development of Component-based Embedded Systems - Kainz, Gerd; Buckl, Christian; Knoll, Alois (Software Engineering 2014 (SE 2014), 2014)

A Safety Aware Run-Time Environment for Adaptive Automotive Control Systems - Frtunikj, Jelena; Rupanov, Vladimir; Camek, Alexander; Buckl, Christian; Knoll, Alois (Embedded Real-Time Software and Systems (ERTS2), 2014)

Data-Centric Middleware support for ASIL assessment and decomposition in open automotive systems - Frtunikj, Jelena; Armbruster, Michael; Knoll, Alois (Automotive meets Electronics, 2014)

Design Space Exploration and its Visualization in AutoFOCUS3 - Voss, Sebastian; Eder, Johannes; Hölzl, Florian (Software Engineering (Workshops), 2014)
Software-intensive embedded systems are characterized by an increasing number of features that implement complex safety-critical functionalities. These systems are more and more developed in a model-based fashion that has been considered as a central design approach to deal with the increase in software complexity. These kinds of embedded systems always require multiple constraints both functional and non-functional ones. AutoFOCUS3 is a model-based development framework using tightly integrated models that enable to perform design space exploration for multi-criteria problems. Finding suitable deployments, meaning the (efficient) assignment of software components to hardware components, is one of these problems. This paper illustrates how such a Design Space Exploration approach in a model-based framework can support the system designer in a (semi-) automatic way, enabling to compare different valid design solutions, w.r.t. a set of given system requirements. We propose a visualization technique to efficiently guide the system designer through such a calculated solutions space. The presented approach has been implemented in the AutoFOCUS3 framework.
Keywords: AutoFOCUS3; design-space exploration; DSE; model-based systems engineering; MbSE

Eingebettete Systeme der Zukunft - Charakteristika, Schlsseltechnologien und Forschungsbedarf - Bauer, Bernhard; Schurius, Markus; Beutler, Marko; Assmayr, Helmut; Thiel, Christian; Voget, Stefan; Mahler, Reinhold; Lübbers, Enno; Kanzler, Ulrich; Benes, Thomas; Saurma, Conrad; Stein, Roland; et al. (BICCnet Clusterbro, 2014)

Capability-based Planning and Scheduling for Adaptable Manufacturing Systems - Keddis, Nadine; Kainz, Gerd; Zoitl, Alois (IEEE Conference on Emerging Technology and Factory Automation (ETFA), 2014)

G4LTL-ST: Automatic Generation of PLC Programs - Cheng, Chih-Hong; Huang, Chung-Hao; Rueß, Harald; Stattelmann, Stefan (Computer Aided Verification - 26th International Conference, CAV 2014, Held as Part of the Vienna Summer of Logic, VSL 2014, Vienna, Austria, July 18-22, 2014. Proceedings, 2014)

Increasing the Adaptability of Manufacturing Systems by Using Data-centric Communication - Keddis, Nadine; Burdalo, Jonathan; Kainz, Gerd; Zoitl, Alois (IEEE Conference on Emerging Technology and Factory Automation (ETFA), 2014)

A Formal Model for Constraint-Based Deployment Calculation and Analysis for Fault-Tolerant Systems - Becker, Klaus; Schätz, Bernhard; Armbruster, Michael; Buckl, Christian (Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Software Engineering and Formal Methods (SEFM), 2014)
In many embedded systems like in the automotive domain, safety-critical features are increasingly realized by software. Some of these features are often required to behave fail-operational, meaning that they must stay alive even in the presence of random hardware failures. We propose a new fault-tolerant SW/HW architecture for electric vehicles with inherent safety capabilities that enable fail-operational features. In this paper, we introduce a constraint-based approach to calculate valid deployments of mixed-critical software components to the execution nodes. To avoid harm, faulty execution nodes have to be isolated from the remaining system. We treat the isolations of execution nodes and the required changes to the deployment to keep those software components alive that realize fail-operational features. The affected software components have to be resumed on intact execution nodes. However, the remaining system resources may become insufficient to execute the full set of software components after an isolation of an execution node. Hence, some components might have to be deactivated, meaning that features might get lost. Our approach allows to formally analyze which subset of features can still be provided after one or more isolations. We present an arithmetic system model with formal constraints of the deployment-problem that can be solved by a SMT-Solver. We evaluate our approach by showing an example problem and its solution.
Keywords: Fault-Tolerance; Fail-Operational; Mixed-Critical; Deployment; Dependability; SMT; Model-based Systems Engineering; MbSE

A Formal Systems Engineering Approach in Practice: An Experience Report - Böhm, Wolfgang; Junker, Maximilian; Vogelsang, Andreas; Teufl, Sabine; Pinger, Ralf; Rahn, Karsten (SER&IPs, 2014)

A new biarticular joint mechanism to extend stiffness ranges - Hoeppner, H.; Wiedmeyer, W; van der Smagt, Patrick (Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2014 IEEE International Conference on, 2014)

A Pattern-based Approach towards Modular Safety Analysis and Argumentation - Khalil, Maged; Schätz, Bernhard; Voss, Sebastian (Embedded Real Time Software and Systems Conference (ERTS 2014), Toulouse, France, 2014)
Safety standards recommend (if not dictate) performing many analyses during the concept phase of development as well as the early adoption of multiple measures at the architectural design level. In practice, the reuse of architectural measures or safety mechanisms is widely-spread, especially in well-understood domains, as is reusing the corresponding safety-cases aiming to document and prove the fulfillment of the underlying safety goals. Safety-cases in the automotive domain are not well-integrated into architectural models and as such do not provide comprehensible and reproducible argumentation nor any evidence for argument correctness. The reuse is mostly ad-hoc, with loss of knowledge and traceability and lack of consistency or process maturity as well as being the most widely spread and cited drawbacks. Using a simplified description of software functions and their most common error management subtypes (avoidance, detection, handling, ..) we propose to define a pattern library covering known solution algorithms and architectural measures/constraints in a seamless holistic model-based approach with corresponding tool support. The pattern libraries would comprise the requirement the pattern covers and the architecture elements/ measures / constraints required and may include deployment or scheduling strategies as well as the supporting safety case template, which would then be integrated into existing development environments. This paper explores this approach using an illustrative example.
Keywords: Model-based Systems Engineering; MbSE

A pattern-based approach towards the guided reuse of safety mechanisms in the automotive domain - Khalil, Maged; Prieto, Alejandro; Hölzl, Florian (Proceedings of the International Symposium on Model-Based Safety and Assessment (IMBSA 2014), 2014)
The reuse of architectural measures or safety mechanisms is widely-spread in practice, especially in well-understood domains, as is reusing the corresponding safety-case to document the fulfillment of the target safety goal(s). This seems to harmonize well with the fact that safety standards recommend (if not dictate) performing many analyses during the concept phase of development as well as the early adoption of multiple measures at the architectural design level. Yet this front-loading is hindered by the fact that safety argumentation is not well-integrated into architectural models in the automotive domain and as such does not support comprehensible and reproducible argumentation nor any evidence for argument correctness. The reuse is neither systematic nor adequate. Using a simplified description of safety mechanisms, we defined a pattern library capturing known solution algorithms and architectural measures/constraints in a seamless holistic model-based approach with corresponding tool support. Based on a meta-model encompassing both development artifacts and safety case elements, the pattern library encapsulates all the information necessary for reuse, which can then be integrated into existing development environments. This paper explores the model and the approach using an illustrative implementation example, along with the supporting workflow for the usage of the approach in both “designer” and “user” roles.
Keywords: Safety-critical systems; pattern-based design; architectures; safety cases; automotive; reuse; Model-based Systems Engineering; MbSE

A Rapid Prototyping Approach for Smart Energy Systems Based on Partial System Models - Hackenberg, Georg; Irlbeck, Maximilian; Koutsoumpas, Vasileios; Bytschkow, Denis (Computer Software and Applications Conference Workshops (COMPSACW), 2014 IEEE 38th International, 2014)

A unit-test framework for event-driven control components modeled in IEC 61499 - Hametner, Reinhard; Hegny, Ingo; Zoitl, Alois (Emerging Technology and Factory Automation (ETFA), 2014 IEEE, 2014)

Advancement of a Sensor Aided Smart Grid Node Architecture - Duchon, Markus; Gupta, Pragya Kirti; Koss, Dagmar; Bytschkow, Denis; Schätz, Bernhard (2014)

Analyzing Stakeholders in Complex E-Government Projects: Towards a Stakeholder Interaction Model - Greger, Vanessa; Balta, Dian; Wolf, Petra; Krcmar, Helmut (Electronic Government - 13th IFIP W.G. 8.5 International Conference EGOV 2014, 2014)

Autonomes Fahren und die ISO 26262 - Sommer, Stephan; Rupanov, Vladimir; Buckl, Christian (Embedded Software Engineering Kongress 2014, 2014)

Component-Based Modeling and Integration of Automotive Application Architectures - Schorp, Konstantin; Sommer, Stephan (Proceedings of the IEEE International Electric Vehicle Conference 2014 IEVC, 2014)

Continuous Control of the DLR Light-weight Robot III by a human with tetraplegia using the BrainGate2 Neural Interface System - Vogel, Joern; Haddadin, S.; JD, Simeral; Bacher, D; MM, Hochberg; JP, Donoghue; van der Smagt, Patrick (Springer Tracts in Experimental Robotics, 2014)

Design Space Exploration in AutoFOCUS3 - An Overview - Voss, Sebastian; Zverlov, Sergey (IFIP First International Workshop on Design Space Exploration of Cyber-Physical Systems, 2014)
Keywords: Model-based Systems Engineering; MbSE

Detecting Performance Change in Enterprise Application Versions Using Resource Profiles - Brunnert, Andreas; Krcmar, Helmut (Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Performance Evaluation Methodologies and Tools, 2014)
Keywords: Enterprise Applications; Java; Palladio Component Model; performance change detection; Performance Evaluation

Employing early model-based safety evaluation to iteratively derive E/E architecture design - Rupanov, Vladimir; Buckl, Christian; Fiege, Ludger; Armbruster, Michael; Knoll, Alois; Spiegelberg, Gernot (Elsevier - Science of Computer Programming, 2014)
Keywords: {ISO} 26262

Estimating finger grip force from an image of the hand using Convolutional Neural Networks and Gaussian Processes - Chen, N; Urban, Sebastian; Osendorfer, C; Bayer, Justin; van der Smagt, Patrick (Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2014 IEEE International Conference on, 2014)

Evaluating the Prediction Accuracy of Generated Performance Models in Up- and Downscaling Scenarios - Brunnert, Andreas; Neubig, Stefan; Krcmar, Helmut (Proceedings of the Symposium on Software Performance (SOSP), 2014)

Evolutionäre Algorithmen zur Performance-Modellierung von Unternehmensanwendungen - Tertilt, Daniel (Technische Universität München, 2014)

Extending Knowledge-Level Contingent Planning to Robot Task Planning - Petrick, Ronald P. A.; Gaschler, Andre (International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling Workshop on Planning and Robotics (PlanRob 2014), 2014)
Keywords: robotics; james

Formal Technical Process Specification and Verification for Automated Production Systems - Hackenberg, Georg; Campetelli, Alarico; Legat, Christoph; Mund, Jakob; Teufl, Sabine; Vogel-Heuser, Birgit (System Analysis and Modeling: Models and Reusability - 8th International Conference, SAM 2014, Valencia, Spain, September 29-30, 2014. Proceedings, 2014)

Formal Verification of Optical Quantum Flip Gate - Mahmoud, Mohamed Yousri; Aravantinos, Vincent; Tahar, Sofiene (Interactive Theorem Proving (ITP), 2014)

Guest Editorial: Special issue on industrial applications of distributed intelligent systems - Strasser, Thomas; Zoitl, Alois; Gruver, William A. (Systems, Man, and Cybernetics: Systems, IEEE Transactions on, 2014)

Handling uncertain input in multi-user human-robot interaction - Keizer, Simon; Foster, Mary Ellen; Gaschler, Andre; Giuliani, Manuel; Isard, Amy; Lemon, Oliver (Proceedings of the 23rd IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN), 2014)
Keywords: robotics; james

Image Super-Resolution with Fast Approximate Convolutional Sparse Coding - Osendorfer, C; Soyer, H; van der Smagt, Patrick (Neural Information Processing, 2014)

Implicational Rewriting Tactics in HOL - Aravantinos, Vincent; Tahar, Sofiene (Interactive Theorem Proving (ITP), 2014)

Information Need in Cloud Service Procurement – An Exploratory Case Study - Wollersheim, Jan; Pfaff, Matthias; Krcmar, Helmut (E-Commerce and Web Technologies, 2014)
Cloud computing enables the on-demand self-service procurement of standardized IT services over the internet. However, to efficiently use electronic markets and platforms for exchanging cloud services, a common understanding of the service to be exchanged is required between the organizations providing and the organizations in need of the service. Currently, only a few rather specific criteria catalogues are available to address this need, only focusing on certain types or specific aspects of cloud services. It remains unclear upon which general characteristics organizations require information when procuring cloud services. To identify this broad set of information, we conducted 16 interviews with small-to-large organizations. Combining the responses with literature-based findings, we identified a set of 39 items that form the essential set of characteristics required by an organization when procuring cloud services. This set provides a starting point for the development of a domain-specific vocabulary, service descriptions, and supports the decision-making process of procuring organizations.
Keywords: Cloud Service Service Description Case Study

Interface definition and code generation in heterogeneous development environments from a single-source - Bauch, Dominik; Lenz, David; Minnerup, Pascal; Avram, Andrei (In 44. Jahrestagung der Gesellschaft für Informatik, Informatik 2014, Big Data - Komplexität meistern, 2014)
Keywords: autonomous driving

Learning Weighted Joint-based Features for Action Recognition Using Depth Camera - Chen, Guang; Zhang, Feihu; Clarke, Daniel; Buckl, Christian; Knoll, Alois (The 9th International Conference on Computer Vision Theory and Applications(VISAPP), 2014)
(accepted, oral)
Keywords: ml

Mehrstufiges Planungskonzept für pilotierte Parkhausfunktionen - Lenz, David; Minnerup, Pascal; Chen, Chao; Roth, Erwin (30. VDI/VW-Gemeinschaftstagung "Fahrerassistenz und Integrierte Sicherheit 2014, 2014)
Keywords: autonomous driving

Model-free robot anomaly detection - Hornung, R; Urbanek, Holger; Klodmann, J; Osendorfer, C; van der Smagt, Patrick (Proc. IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Robotics and Systems (IROS), 2014)

Modelling Control Systems Using IEC 61499 - Zoitl, Alois; Lewis, Robert W (IET, 2014)

MRI-based skeletal hand movement model - Stillfried, G; Hillenbrand, U.; Settles, M; van der Smagt, Patrick (The Human Hand as an Inspiration for Robot Hand Development, 2014)

Multi-Modal Path Planning for Solving Abstract Robot Tasks - Jentzsch, Sören (Technische Universität München, Germany, 2014)

Multiple Vehicle Cooperative Localization with Spatial Registration Based on a Probability Hypothesis Density Filter - Zhang, Feihu; Buckl, Christian; Knoll, Alois (Sensors, 2014)

On Fast Dropout and its Applicability to Recurrent Networks - Bayer, Justin; Osendorfer, C; Korhammer, Daniela; Chen, N; Urban, Sebastian; van der Smagt, Patrick (Proceedings of the International Conference on Learning Representations, 2014)

Performance Management Work - Brunnert, Andreas; Vögele, Christian; Danciu, Alexandru; Pfaff, Matthias; Mayer, Manuel; Krcmar, Helmut (WIRTSCHAFTSINFORMATIK, 2014)

Performance Management Work - Brunnert, Andreas; Vögele, Christian; Danciu, Alexandru; Pfaff, Matthias; Mayer, Manuel; Krcmar, Helmut (Business & Information Systems Engineering, 2014)

Planning Perception and Action for Cognitive Mobile Manipulators - Gaschler, Andre; Nogina, Svetlana; Petrick, Ronald P. A.; Knoll, Alois (Proceedings of SPIE Volume 9025 – Intelligent Robots and Computer Vision XXXI: Algorithms and Techniques, 2014)
Keywords: robotics; james

Practitioners' and Researchers' Expectations on Design Space Exploration for Multicore Systems in the Automotive and Avionics Domains: A Survey - Diebold, Philipp; Lampasona, Constanza; Zverlov, Sergey; Voss, Sebastian (Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering, 2014)
Background: The mobility domains are moving towards the adoption of multicore technology. Appropriate methods, techniques, and tools need to be developed or adapted in order to fulfill the existing requirements. This is a case for design space exploration methods and tools. Objective: Our goal was to understand the importance of different design space exploration goals with respect to their relevance, frequency of use, and tool support required in the development of multicore systems from the point of view of the ARAMiS project members. Our aim was to use the results to guide further work in the project. Method: We conducted a survey regarding the current state of the art in design space exploration in industry and research and collected the expectations of project members regarding design space exploration goals. Results: The results show that design space exploration is an important topic in industry as well as in research. It is used very often with different important goals to optimize the system. Conclusions: Current tools provide only partial solutions for design space exploration. Our results can be used for improving them and guiding their development according to the priorities explained in this contribution.
Keywords: automotive; avionics; design space exploration; industry; multicore; research; Survey; Model-based Systems Engineering; MbSE

Reference Framework for the Engineering of Cyber–Physical Systems: A first Approach - Campetelli, Alarico; Irlbeck, Maximilian; Bytschkow, Denis; Gengarle, M.; Schorp, Konstantin (2014)

Smartphones as Multisensors in Smart Building Environments - Lauchner, Philipp; Bludau, Peter; Duchon, Markus; Koss, Dagmar (11th International Symposium on Location-Based Services in Vienna, 2014)

Standardized Dynamic Reconfiguration of Control Applications in Industrial Systems - Strasser, Thomas; Rooker, Martijn; Ebenhofer, Gerhard; Zoitl, Alois (International Journal of Applied Industrial Engineering (IJAIE), 2014)
Industrial areas like manufacturing, logistics and power systems require highly flexible and adaptable control solutions in order to fulfill future requirements. An industrial automation system has to provide technologies, concepts and mechanisms allowing the adaption of control logic during operation. Proper engineering approaches as well as execution environments with dynamic reconfiguration capabilities are needed to turn this vision into reality. This article provides an overview of applying the IEC 61499 reference model for distributed automation as basis for a standard-compliant reconfigurable method in industrial environments. It covers the modeling and engineering of reconfiguration applications and their execution on distributed embedded controllers using IEC 61499. This approach significantly increases engineering efficiency and reuse in component-based design of industrial automation and control applications. A special focus of this contribution is the discussion of implemented industrial use cases from the manufacturing, robotics and power systems domain.

Supporting Concurrent Development of Requirements and Architecture: A Model-based Approach - Vogelsang, Andreas; Eder, Sebastian; Hackenberg, Georg; Junker, Maximilian; Teufl, Sabine (2014 2nd International Conference on Model-Driven Engineering and Software Development (MODELSWARD), 2014)
A system's requirements and its architecture are usually developed at least partly in parallel. This demands a continuous and automated assessment to confirm that the architecture conforms to its requirements. To enable such an assessment, the stepwise formalization of informal requirements has been proposed. However, there is no canonical set of artifacts and analysis techniques that has been evaluated for this task in practice yet. In this paper we propose an artifact model and a process that enables the continuous conformance assessment between requirements and architecture in a model-based context. We evaluate both in a development project with a group of students.