Using behaviour-driven development with hardware-software co-design for autonomous load management

The typical approach to designing embedded systems manages the specification and design of the hardware and software separately. HW/SW Co-design is used, in embedded computing, to allow the hardware and the software to be designed and implemented together and make sure that the non-functional properties are met. Behavior-driven development (BDD) is an agile software development approach that spurs collaboration of project stakeholders to ensure the right software is developed to meet their needs. BDD describes the behavior of the system as executable user stories and focuses on how the system behaves for users interact with the system. In this paper, we introduce an approach that integrates BDD with HW/SW Co-design. The approach provides the ability to describe the behavior of the software as executable user stories in a HW/SW Co-design environment. The approach is evaluated using a renewable energy project in collaboration with a private company in Canada to build a system for autonomous load management of self-forming renewable energy nanogrids.