The safety and reliability of real systems are two principal goals of a virtual-reality project being undertaken by researchers at the Fraunhofer Institutes for Experimental Software Engineering and for Factory Operation and Automation. Virtual 3D models of embedded systems—for example in vehicle technology—are intended to help engineers understand complex parameters visually and simplify development. This could enable them to optimize system safety in particular.
“Distributed embedded systems are often safety-critical and at the same time so complex that risks and corresponding corrective measures are difficult to identify,” explains Peter Liggesmeyer, Director of Fraunhofer IESE, describing the project’s motivation. It aims to address this problem by enabling virtual representations of the systems and their abstract properties. Instead of having to perform complicated and unintuitive calculations, engineers could see the effects of changing individual parameters directly in the 3D model. “Complex calculations still have to take place in the background,” Frank Seelisch of IESE emphasizes to pressetext. An engineer would have to define them only once, however. The VR model would then make it much easier than before to compare how different designs affect the system and consequently optimize it.
The project’s scientists are examining concrete application scenarios. These include automotive engineering, a focus at IESE, and factory and production planning. In Kaiserslautern, IESE researchers are concentrating particularly on the software components of embedded systems, while the Magdeburg IFF focuses on mechanical and electrical components. Seelisch says the two-and-a-half-year project will probably not yet succeed in representing every kind of component in a complex system within a single comprehensive VR model. “That is, and must remain, the long-term goal,” he emphasizes. Interfaces between different kinds of components, such as mechanics and electronics, are frequently especially critical to system safety and reliability.
