Maintenance and Evolution Processes of Embedded Software: A Systematic Literature Review

Abstract

The relevance of embedded systems has increased considerably due to industrial automation and the adoption of IoT and medical devices. This process demands the adaptation of software engineering techniques that involve the maintenance and evolution of software for use in embedded systems. We conducted this Systematic Literature Review (SLR) to investigate the state of the art on the topics of maintenance and evolution of software applied to embedded systems. The purpose was to identify their key characteristics using a total of 67 primary studies from 1992-2023. The results of this review can encourage future research into improving the software maintenance and evolution process. The current state of the art suggests a need for more research in the field, mainly in the area of unified processes to support software maintenance and evolution. The main findings in this research include the impact of maintenance and evolution on the supporting processes, the software life cycle, their relationships, the essential maintenance strategies, code inspection and analysis, review of technical debt, code refactoring, difficulties in applying protocols and strategies, component obsolescence analysis, and modification protocols.