A case study using the cosmic-ffp measurement method for assessing real-time system specifications

Abstract

The success of a system development project largely depends on the nonambiguity of its system-level requirements specification document, where the requirements are described at the system level rather than at the software and hardware level. There may be missing details about the allocation of functions between hardware and software, both for the developers who will have to implement such requirements later on, and for the software measurers who have to immediately attempt to measure the software functional size of such requirements.. The result of different interpretations of the specification problem would lead to different software being built, and of different functional size. The research described in this paper is concerned with the challenges inherent in understanding the initial system requirements in textual form and assessing the codesign decisions using the functional size measurement. This paper aimed at understanding the applicability of the COSMIC-FFP functional size measurement method in assessing the hardware-software requirements allocation, and illustrates the approach on a Steam Boiler Controller case study.