Software and hardware elements in software-driven complex systems are often designed independent from one another, and merged later. The problem with this design approach is that the requirements that involve hardware and software dependencies are not taken into consideration effectively, potentially causing the system to fail or be in an undesirable state.This research argues that, by considering software and hardware requirements together from the earliest design stages, a more reliable system will be designed by knowing the possible failure situations that may occur. In order to increase the reliability of the final system, this paper introduces a methodology to follow the software-hardware system as it completes a command and identifies the failure situations that may occur and the requirements needed to ensure successful completion of the command. The overall goal is to provide designers with an integrated design methodology to capture safety, reliability, and mission success related requirements in software-driven complex hardware systems.The benefits of the methodology are illustrated and the steps demonstrated using NASA's K10 Rover as an example. The methodology is applied to the command of Move Rover, with the software and hardware interactions that may cause failures clearly identified in the model. Specifically, the hardware and software states that would allow for correct operation of the command are identified and clearly displayed on the model. The visual model and requirements that are developed can be used by the designers of the software to ensure mission success.
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