The Darwin Project: Evolvability of Software-Intensive Systems

Abstract

This paper presents the Darwin 1 project. This applied research project is currently conducted at Philips Medical Systems and focuses on the evolvability of software-intensive systems, with as use case Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) systems. We not only discuss evolvability of software-intensive systems in general, but also describe the project and its research areas.Third IEEE Workshop on Software Evolvability 0-7695-3002-8/07 $25.00 The first research topic in this area concentrates on the communication in an MRI system: from the collection of the raw image data to the storage in a Picture Archiving and Communications System, from controlling the system to visualizing images, and from cables to communication protocols. The communication infrastructure of an MRI system impacts many system properties. For example, the amount of physical cables in an MRI system impacts the cost and ease-of-installation; the amount of connectors for the cables influences the reliability of the system; and the transport of data through the cables generates electric magnetic fields that negatively influence the image quality. A considerable part of the communication infrastructure of a Philips MRI system has been developed in-house. However, currently publicly-available and mass-marketed wired and wireless communication technologies might make it possible to replace proprietary solutions by general solutions and/or to reduce the number of physical cables by mapping multiple communication pathways onto a single cable. Models of the available hardware

Analyzing the Actual Execution of a Large Software-Intensive System for Determining Dependencies

“…This is both a finding of the research community [14], and our own observation as part of our research on evolvability of softwareintensive systems [23]. On the one hand, it is hard and expensive to obtain and integrate execution traces from heterogeneous systems.…”

A top-down strategy to reverse architecting execution views for a large and complex software-intensive system: An experience report

“…Second, the cost of training or preparation to use the approach can be neglected. This was possible because the approach was developed and validated in close collaboration between researchers and Philips Healthcare MRI practitioners as part of the Darwin project [3], an industry-as-laboratory research project. Finally, we designed a top-down strategy and assembled a team.…”

“…If system documentation is available, it may go into too much technical detail to offer relevant and accurate architectural information. As part of our research project on evolvability of software-intensive systems [3], we have observed that these situations are common in practice and development organizations constantly need up-to-date and accessible architectural information to steer the ✩ This work has been carried out as a part of the Darwin project at Philips Healthcare under the responsibilities of the Embedded Systems Institute. This project is partially supported by the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs under the BSIK program.…”