Software Engineering and Object Modeling

The Software Engineering research group is engaged in both technology and methodology projects, promoting the efficient implementation of software solutions for industrial applications. A special area of interest is equation-based object modeling, an area where Santa Anna is hosting the international Open Source Modelica Consortium.

The primary goals of the activities in the Software Engineering group are:

  • To create and transfer Software Engineering competence to its partners, that is commercial trade and industry companies, public corporations, public and private institutes, and authorities.
  • To catalyse industrial growth related to Software Engineering
  • To allow academic researchers to test their ideas and assist in creating spin-off companies.
  • To feed back experience and research data from the Companies to the University.
  • To watch the technical development and proactively suggest new projects.

Many companies of different sizes are dependent on high-quality software that realise IT-solutions they sell to their customers. To develop this software the companies need competence in:

  • Methods and techniques for the entire software life cycle, for example, Requirements engineering, Design, Implementation, Testing, Operation and Maintenance.
  • Processes and management methods, for instance, RUP, Software quality assurance, CMMI, Software reuse, Project control and Outsourcing.
  • Tools and middleware, for instance, Focal Point, Eclipse, CORBA, Databases, Compilers, Parallelisation and Domain-dependent languages.
  • Special quality technology and engineering methods that help realising wanted quality attributes, for instance, security, safety, reliability, usability and performance
  • Domain or business segment dependent knowledge, for instance, simulation of physical systems, signal processing, telecommunication, vehicular systems and business systems.
  • Knowledge of the market and customer needs.

In the group, with a strong coupling to the Department of Computer and Information Science (IDA) at Linköping University, we have worked with software quality and management as well as both tools and middleware since the early 80's. A dominant part of the research has been performed in tight cooperation with various companies, either by transferring research results to industry use or to improve and validate existing practice. By working with industry we have also got acquainted with their business domains and how a company is run in general. Most of the research leaders also have first-hand experience of working in a company as employed or founder of a spin-off company.

Currently we are working with companies in the areas:
- Requirements engineering methods,
- Security,
- Testing,
- Design, especially modelling of software,
- Compiler technology and parallel computing,
- Creating software for modelling and simulating physical systems.