Development guidelines for dependable real-time embedded systems

Embedded control systems play an increasing role in many safety critical system designs. The correct and dependable implementation of such systems depends on many factors, including the design of system hardware, software and fault tolerance mechanisms, the choice of programming language, and also the testing, verification and validation techniques employed. In this paper, a set of guidelines for the development of dependable embedded systems is presented. Although the paper is primarily concerned with single-processor applications, extensions to multiprocessor systems are discussed where appropriate. Although the creation of dependable embedded systems cannot simply rely on the enforcement of several such rules or guidelines, experience gained from several years' experience of teaching, research and development in these areas indicates that adherence to a small, but workable, set of rules and guidelines can avoid many of the traps and pitfalls commonly encountered in the creation of dependable embedded systems.