Demonstrators for Industrial Cyber-Physical System Research: A Requirements Hierarchy Driven by Software-Intensive Design

One of the challenges apparent in the organisation of research projects is the uncertainties around the subject of demonstrators. A precise and detailed elicitation of the coverage for project demonstrators is often an afterthought and not sufficiently detailed during proposal writing. This practice leads to continuous confusion and a mismatch between targeted and achievable demonstration of results, hindering progress. The reliance on the Technology Readiness Level (TRL) scale as a loose descriptor does not help either. We propose a demonstrator requirements elaboration framework aiming to evaluate the feasibility of targeted demonstrations, making realistic adjustments, and assist in describing requirements. In doing so, we define five hierarchical levels of demonstration, clearly connected to expectations, e.g., work package interaction, and also connected to the project’s industrial use-cases. The considered application scope in this paper is the domain of software-intensive systems and industrial cyber-physical systems. A complete validation is not accessible, as it would require application of our framework at the start of a project and observing the results at the end, taking 4–5 years. Nonetheless, we have applied it to two research projects from our portfolio, one in the early stages and another in the final stages, revealing its effectiveness.