Improving software characteristics of a real-time system using reengineering techniques

The major problem addressed by this research is how to improve an existing real-time software system's readability, maintainability, stability and portability using reengineering techniques. A fundamental portion of the Model- based Mobile robot Language (MML) was the real-time system chosen as the basis for this study. The approach taken was to create a new system design. The new design was based on system specifications obtained by conducting static and dynamic analysis on the existing system. The results are that a new core system was implemented using a design that focused on creating independent software sub-systems while encapsulating data. Hardware dependencies were localized and assembly code minimized. The new system is easier to understand and modify and is portable to other hardware platforms. Autonomous vehicle, Robot, Software engineering, Real-time system.