Case
studies and examples help students understand real systems and supplement
the material in the book. In my courses, I adopt a style of presentation
where I try to supplement every lecture with some material from
the case studies here or with other studies such as studies of automated
road tolling or e-election systems.
In
each of the following case studies, I provide a short description
of the system, what aspects of software engineering that it can
be used to illustrate and a set of links to further information
about the systems. I haven't tried to standardise the material available
because the applicability of the case studies varies significantly.
The different material available reflects how I have used these
in my teaching.
Insulin
pump case study. More information on the running case study
in the book.
Internet
worm. An early example of a security failure where a large number
of Internet servers were infected at a relatively early stage in
the development of the Internet.
Ariane 5 launcher
explosion. The Ariane 5 rocket failed on its maiden flight due
to software problems. The inertial navigation system software failed
and the rocket became unstable and had to be destroyed.
Airbus 340 flight
control system. The Airbus flight control system was the first
example of a fly by wire system for civil aircraft. This study discusses
the structure of the system and how diversity and fault tolerance
is provided.
London
Ambulance Despatching System. This despatching system for emergency
vehicles failed dramatically immediately after it went live. The
case study explores the various socio-technical reasons why this
happened.
The
following links are to sites with case study information that I
have only glanced at rather than reviewed. They may be useful:
Priya
Narasimhan's site at CMU
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