Image Processing Reference
In-Depth Information
Industry
Standards compliance
Coexistence
Environment
Nonfunctional
requirements
Supplier/
component
choice
Communication
technology
choice
Requirements
solicitation
Product
Common platforms
Functional
requirements
Volume/cost
Standards compliance
Coexistence
Development tools
Know-how
Legacy
systems
Application
Requirements capture
Design
Implementation/test
FIGURE .
Principal development process.
Many industries, customers, and suppliers have adopted their own communication standards, or
when possible refer to international standards. If a different technology shall be acceptable, as a min-
imum requirement, it must be able to coexist with other technologies without unduly compromising
the performance of installed devices/systems.
27.3.3 Choosing Suppliers and Components
The choice of technology has a direct impact on the availability of suitable SW/HW components,
and thus also on the total development cost/time. Since industrial devices have a quite long lifetime,
legacy systems have a major impact on choice of technology as well as components. Many suppli-
ers have streamlined their development processes and base their product portfolios on standardized
platforms. his has great benefits in terms of volume/cost of components and development tools, as
well as spreading of best practices and know-how. Introducing a new SW/HW component or plat-
form is often a demanding and time-consuming task, and always represents an additional risk. You
can never be quite sure that the new component will behave in the same manner as those components
that have undergone years of development/refinement and are proven in the field. It might therefore
be better to utilize a well-known component, and suffer/deal with the performance losses of utilizing
a “nonoptimal” component from a WSN perspective.
27.3.4 Pulling It All Together
The development process depicted in Figure . gives the impression that the development follows
a rather linear waterfall-type model. Even if you might start out that way, due to the complexity
of the requirements and the boundary conditions imposed by industry and legacy systems, the
design/implementation/test phase usually reverts to a highly iterative process. Developing WSN
