Toward robust product realisation in software product lines

Abstract

Product derivation is a building process of products from selected features in software product lines (SPLs). Realisation paves the way for automatic product derivation. A realisation defines a mapping between abstract features in a feature tree and their implementation artefacts in a model, and therefore governs the derivation of a new product. We experience that a realisation is not always straightforward and robust against modifications in the model. In the paper, we introduce an approach to build robust realisations. It consists of automated planning techniques and a layered architecture to yield a product. We demonstrate how our approach can leverage modern means of software design, development and validation. We evaluate the approach on a use-case provided by an industry partner and compare our technique to the existing realisation layer in the Base Variability Resolution (BVR) language.