Support for Architectural Design and Re-Design of Embedded Systems

The market pushes the continuous evolution of embedded appliances (cellular phones, hand-held games, medical machinery, automotive systems, etc.). The assistance of appropriate methodologies and tools for supporting system-level design of embedded systems has become necessary for the development of appliances with tight constraints on performance, cost, and safety. Moreover, it is crucial to be able to rapidly and effectively modify appliances in order to meet new possible requirements. This chapter addresses the architectural design and redesign of embedded systems from a methodological viewpoint, taking into account both the hardware and software aspects; the final goal is to figure out the most convenient structure for the investigated system. In this context, the employment of both UML and XML can be regarded as an important step to substantially improve the overall design process