Formal verification and software product lines

Advances in embedded computing technologies have made society extremely dependent on embedded software used in automobile, mobile phone, and home electronics applications, etc. Consequently, the reliability of embedded software is crucial for daily life. In the past, the development of embedded software has been implementation-centric. However, due to an increase in the size and complexity of software and a reduction in development time, it is difficult to produce reliable software using conventional techniques. Therefore, the quality of embedded software has become a matter of concern. To solve this problem, various software engineering techniques, such as analysis/design methods and reuse technologies, are currently introduced. Product line engineering is one of the most advanced software practices based on these results (Clements and Northrop 2001).