Feature characterization for CPS software reuse

Many organizations continue to have reusable systems because they are cheaper, and associated with less time to market. Moreover, the practitioners experience lower risk if they choose to continually improve the reusable system rather than building a new system from scratch. Many reusable cyber-physical system (CPS) exist which interact with multiple physical entities. Users today expect modern CPS to satisfy a wide range of constraints at runtime. This paper characterizes the reusable CPS software by identifying the functional behaviors of the CPS as features along with the hierarchical relationships among them. We also recover dependencies (mandatory, optional, or, alternative) and cross-tree constraints (require, exclude) among the features as well as identify possible valid feature-configurations. In the experimental analysis, we discuss features and their configurations for three existing CPS software. Our framework benefits the practitioners in all stages of abstraction such as design, development, and testing.