A More Agile Approach to Embedded System Development

Given the plethora of advantages attributed to agile methodologies, why are there only infrequent reports of their application in the embedded systems world? We believe this has two principal causes. First, embedded applications go through a life cycle that differs from desktop life cycles, so that desktop application production processes must be significantly altered to meet the demands of this new domain. Second, without providing for full life-cycle tool support, no change to embedded production processes will ever succeed, and again desktop tools must be adapted to meet the new environment's constraints. Here, the authors discuss their thoughts on an XP-inspired embedded life cycle and their successes in developing, extending, and using embedded test-driven development frameworks for customers (Matlab-Fit and Embedded-FitNesse) and developers (MUnit and Embedded-Unit).