ISDP: Interactive Software Development Platform for Household Appliance Testing Industry

Distributed measurement systems (DMSs) are widely adopted to assist the design and testing of household appliances. Unfortunately, a reference model rarely rules the development of those systems, leading to poor software quality and bringing many troubles in the process of maintenance and integration. Furthermore, the development of measurement systems often suffers from low efficiency due to the complex programming and debugging process. To address the aforementioned issues, we first present a universal reference model serving as a foundation in the design of DMSs, particularly for the household appliance testing industry. The model provides the design criteria and methodologies of DMSs in terms of data collection and management. Then, according to the model, an interactive platform is built to facilitate the software development of DMSs for both local and web-based applications. The platform consists of the reusable component libraries, the client-based assembly subsystem, the web-based assembly subsystem, the data collection subsystem, and the customization subsystem. The software development process for measurement systems is turned into configuring parameters through interactive dialog boxes. The development efficiency and performance of the system generated by the platform are evaluated. Moreover, the model and platform are validated by various development cases for manufacturing enterprises. The results demonstrate that the model is feasible and that the platform remarkably improves the development efficiency and software quality.