Use of Ontologies in Embedded Systems: A Systematic Mapping

Many domains of Embedded Systems (e.g., automotive, avionics, consumer electronics, industrial automation, medical…) are rapidly evolving toward solutions that integrate hardware and software, or incorporate complete systems in a single chip. The specificities of the concepts have a complexity on data analysis and during the identification of relationship between them. The usage of an ontology for embedded systems seems to be necessary. Indeed, ontology is an important engineering artifact used in several domains, that provides uniformity to the concepts in terms of syntax and semantics, facilitates the communication in various fields and improves the understanding of requirements. This work conducted a systematic mapping, to collect evidence about the need of ontologies in embedded systems development. We focus on the identification of ontology that represents languages used for the development of embedded systems, considering the various domains of these, as well as the benefits of using an ontology for this purpose. After applying selection criteria in the mapping driving phases, 19 papers were selected and analyzed. This mapping provides evidences of real benefits in using ontologies for embedded systems.