Introduction and Context

Abstract

There are so many books in print that the first duty of an author must be to explain why a new one is needed. The present book is about the application of software framework technology to embedded control systems and its core is the description of a case study of a full object-oriented framework for a particular – but representative – class of embedded control systems. Its justification therefore requires arguing the case in favour of the distinctiveness of these systems. This is done in the next section with reference to embedded systems in general since their claims to distinctiveness encompass and subsume those of the narrower category of control systems. The following sections instead outline the long-term programme of research within which the results presented here were obtained. The material in the book only covers a small part of this programme (which, at the time of writing, is still on-going) but understanding the latter helps understand the motivation and intention behind the former. The chapter closes with a formulation of the objectives of the book and a summary of its contributions.