A Metamodel to Guide a Requirements Elicitation Process for Embedded Systems

[Context] In the embedded systems (ES) area, more than 50% of problems occur at system delivery and are related to misconceptions in capturing requirements. Therefore, it is necessary to address what should be considered by requirements engineers in the elicitation and specification phases of embedded systems. However, understanding embedded systems and their environment is a strenuous activity. Hence, requirements engineers need to know the core concepts related to ES and also a systematic guide to consider these concepts in the development process. [Goal] This paper presents a metamodel based on a systematic literature review (SLR) that can support the elicitation of ES concepts. Additionally, we used the metamodel as a guide to the development of a requirements elicitation process. [Method] We used the studies of an SLR as a basis for the metamodel development and their concepts as input for an investigation of actions that are suitable to be used in our elicitation process. The proposed metamodel concepts were evaluated by a domain expert, and we applied the actions of the process to elicit requirements of an infusion pump system. [Results] The metamodel has 118 entities that represent the RE concepts for ES, and the elicitation process has 49 actions to guide requirements identification and definition. [Conclusion] The metamodel can be used by practitioners to check if they are eliciting the appropriate information for the development of embedded systems. Moreover, it can assist future research. Besides, the process can help organizations in improving their requirements practices to support completeness and correctness of ES elicitation.