Change-Oriented Requirements Traceability: Support for Evolution of Embedded Systems

Planning of requirements changes is often inaccurate and implementation of changes is time consuming and error prone. One reason for these problems is imprecise and inefficient approaches to analyze the impact of changes. This thesis proposes a precise and efficient impact analysis approach that focuses on functional system requirements changes of embedded control systems. It consists of three parts: (1) a fine-grained conceptual trace model, (2) process descriptions of how to establish traces and how to analyze the impact of changes, and (3) supporting tools. Empirical investigation shows that the approach has a beneficial effect on the effectiveness and efficiency of impact analyses and that it supports a more consistent implementation of changes.