An XP Inspired Test-Oriented Life-Cycle Production Strategy for Building Embedded Biomedical Applications

The construction of embedded biomedical applications is an under explored topic. The status quo is for practitioners to utilize a production process which possesses no specific focus; meanwhile, the marketplace requires highly demanding characteristics from these products. The principal requirement is that most of these products need to be effectively defect free. This demands that the production process be directed towards this objective; and hence the focus of this paper is our initial attempts at designing and implementing such a process. Our new process is developed around transforming a subset of extreme programming from the world of desktop applications into a methodology for this new domain. The paper also discusses our experiences in developing test frameworks to support the domain and our objectives. Finally, the paper provides some pointers on our future plans for tackling the many unresolved issues that still exist in attempting to fully realize and support this new development process.