Architecting Autonomous Underwater Vehicles by Adapting Software Product Lines

Software reuse has been one of the most profitable practices in the Software Industry. Different software engineering approaches aim to systematically include reuse as part of their goals. In general, software-product lines as driven principles, component-based software engineering as a methodological approach, and feature models (FMs) for modeling requirements and composing the system’s architecture constitute strong trends for reuse in the development of Information Technology solutions. Technological development has enabled the inclusion of software in electromechanics devices as well as distributed and interoperable cyber-physical systems. Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUV) are a particular kind of Cyber-physical system including software, electronic and mechanical components. In this paper, we analyze software product lines for architecting AUV by using FMs. The aim of this paper is to extend FM for handling physical features in the construction of a family of AUVs for accomplishing different AUV missions, and by using a common set of assets.