Abstract

The share of software in embedded systems hasbeen growing permanently in the recent years. Thus, softwarearchitecture as well as its evaluation have becomeimportant parts of the development of embedded systems todescribe, assess, and assure sound architecture as basis forhigh quality systems. Furthermore, design space explorationcan be based on architecture evaluation. To achieve anefficient exploration process, architectural decisions needto be taken into account as part of the architecture. Inthis paper, a method for analyzing architecture potentialon the basis of dependencies between quality attributesis presented and applied. An explicit representation andcorrelation of such dependencies provides decision supportfor architectural concerns. Not only can suboptimal decisionsbe avoided but rather valuable options are highlighted.Besides the quality of an architecture, knowledge of howto achieve and even improve the quality can be analyzed.The latter is the concern of architecture potential analysispresented in this paper. Furthermore, architectural decisionscan be documented and will be traceable and justifiablewith respect to the development rationale. The ongoingdevelopment process can then be based on dependable andwell documented architectural decisions. The predictabilityof change impacts is increased. Thus, time and costs can besaved by avoiding suboptimal changes.